Canto 79 – Riding theMagic Carpet (The Blue Thread)
Arkin Cloudstalker and his six Lazerstone companions returned to their little scout ship at the downport. One of the Lazerstones carried the angry head and torso of the bounty hunter, Ace Campfield.
“I don’t know how we are going to fit seven of us in this little two-man scout ship,” complained Arkin. “It’s barely supplied well enough for two.”
“You forget that the Lazerstone collective are not humanoids. We don’t eat food. We don’t breathe atmosphere. We don’t even sleep. Besides, I can’t leave any of my kind on a non-resonant rock like this one. We must all go with you to a better source of crystal.”
“You aren’t going to leave me here with no arms or legs, either, are you?” complained Campfield. “And I make eight if you are counting me.”
“Seven and a half,” corrected Arkin.
“We could completely destroy him,” recommended the Lazerstone carrying the mechanoid
“He could prove useful yet, especially if we re-program him,” said Arkin.
“Well, the machine-man is right, then. If he counts, he makes too many.”
As they reached the berth of their star ship, Cloudstalker was surprised to see the woman he knew as the Black Fly standing there in her full black body suit with one of the Snarcs Brothers, the one called Cinco Snarcs.
“What? What are you doing here? And didn’t the Snarcs idiots strand us when they disappeared from Hyde Park without warning?”
“We is not abandoning you, boss,” said big-nosed Cinco Snarcs. “Sir Emerald Man with his greeny wishes came and snorkeled us all away to sell fish-skin socks in anudder time and place.”
“He means the Snarcs brothers had to be in another time and place for the White Duke’s purposes, so a Time Knight whisked them away.” The black fly pulled off her black mask as she spoke, a beautiful fall of auburn hair revealing a beauty that Arkin had not thought possible. She was a lovely lady of about his own age.
“So, you two are here to help cram us all into a little scout ship we were left with by fleeing Snarcses?” Arkin’s voice sounded far more cross than he had intended.
“We don’t do the sardini thingy with space men, no,” assured Cinco Snarcs.
“We have a patrol corvette called the Magic Carpet,” said Black Fly.
“So, we will all fit on your Magic Carpet?”
“It can handle up to sixty troops and a crew of four.”
“Good. We need to return to Tron’s base at Outpost as quickly as we can.”
“Ah, yes. But only after one further stop. We must also visit a planet called Djinnistan.”
“What will we find there, genies?”
“Djinn, Peris, and Afrits, yes.” Something about the Black Fly’s charming smile bothered Arkin just a bit.
Nocturne 6 – Highly Heated Moments (The White Thread)
Rocket Rogers and Phoenix walked together towards the community baths in the Palace of 1,000 Years. Not far behind them walked Friashqazatla, better known to all as Freddy due to pronunciations and the intricacies of the Zaranian language.
“You do know that he’s following you and not me,” said Phoenix. “It’s you he seems to be queer for.”
Rocket looked at his literally hot-headed friend with a sense of embarrassment. He didn’t know what to do about Freddy’s apparent hero-worship.
“Hey, Dog-Boy. If you’re going to follow us around like a puppy, you might as well be one. Didn’t Ged-sensei teach you how to transform?” Phoenix could be needlessly cruel it seemed.
Freddy looked at them with sapphire eyes. Then he stripped off his blue jumper and his blue turban, transforming into the black wolf as he did so.
“Good boy!” said Phoenix. He signaled to the black wolf to come to their side, possibly to pet him. But when Freddy padded up within reach, he used his pointer finger to set the wolf’s tail on fire.
Freddy immediately changed back to his dark-skinned humanoid form, putting the fire out before being burned by making all the flammable fur go away.
“That was mean,” said Freddy, sitting on the wet floor of the bath house naked.
“Why do you have to follow us?” asked Phoenix hotly.
“Well, um… I like Rocket and want to be his friend.”
“He’s already got me for a friend.”
Then both of them looked directly at Rocket. He blushed a bit. “Yeah, um… I think I may have room for more than one friend.”
“Suit yourself.” Phoenix dropped his black kimono and proceeded nude to the bathing pool currently occupied by Taffy King and little Mai Ling.
“If you’re willing to risk it, you can bathe with us,” offered Rocket. “But I’m not gay, if you were wondering.”
“That’s good. Me neither. I just want to be your friend.”
Rocket dropped everything but his cowboy hat, helped Freddy up, and together they went over to the same pool and slipped into the water. Phoenix had already used his Psionic powers to heat the water to a level barely able to be tolerated by humanoids.
“Do you always have to make it so hot?” complained Taffy. Rocket liked being around her when she was nude. She was not human in the way he was, but only her saurian eyes made her noticeably different than him.
“If you don’t like it, you can always get out,” said Phoenix with an evil grin.
Rocket quietly lowered the water temperature a little, not quite enough for Phoenix to notice, but enough to protect Freddy and the girls from being broiled like cooked lobsters in a pot.
The warm water was actually soothing on sore muscles after the rigorous workout they had been doing under Ged-sensei’s direction.
“So, Taffy, what are you gonna do for a boyfriend now that Alec has found a new squeeze?” asked Phoenix with a suggestive leer.
“Alec was never my boyfriend. Just like you will never be. But I am still open to other options. Boys who aren’t so mean and evil, I mean.” Taffy smiled at Rocket.
“Well, I like that,” muttered Phoenix as he apparently made the water even hotter.
“How do you do that?” Mai Ling asked Phoenix. “I really like hot water for baths.”
“Really? How hot?”
“Phoenix! Don’t you dare!” Taffy glared at him with green lizard eyes.
“Would you like to see how hot you can stand it?” Phoenix offered, sounding a bit more sincere than usual.
“I really would,” said the little girl. “But maybe in another pool? And don’t cook me, please.”
Phoenix shrugged. He and Mai Ling got out and walked to another pool.
“Remember, Phoenix. She’s a very good shot and is useful in combat!” Rocket shouted.
“Don’t worry, Rocket. I might be in the market for more than one friend too.”
As soon as Rocket turned back around in the pool, Taffy planted a kiss right on his lips.
“Mmmph! Ah… what exactly was that for?”
“How would you like to be my boyfriend?” Taffy asked point blank. Then she kissed him again. Longer. And he didn’t mind at all. But when they finally came up for air, Freddy was looking at them both with an embarrassed grin on his face.
Yes, I am writing this post in response to another hard day of substitute teaching. 6th graders! Aaargh!
But the real point of it is that most of the problems I had are due to every teacher’s daily nightmare… discipline management.
This is all that remains of my classroom rules poster from the 1980’s.
Teachers, even substitute teachers, are expected to keep an orderly classroom. But the truth is, no adult human being can make a twelve-to-eighteen-year-old member of the monkey house do anything… or refrain from doing the most harmful thing that occurs to the immature monkey brain.
It is just as Carl Sandburg once suggested in a clever poem. If you tell them not to put beans in their ears, the only thing they will definitely want to do is put beans in their ears.
So, this post is my list of excuse-a-mes for why the classes I taught yesterday all had bean-filled ears.
Excuse number one; 6th graders! Aaargh! Yes, I had four classes to teach, and three of them were made up solely of 6th graders. They are the squirrel monkeys of the middle-school monkey house. Unable to sit still and be quiet on their best days, they were super-stirred and hormone-activated. It is, after all, February, a week before Valentine’s Day, the hormonal-monkey holiday. It was a writing class and they had a writing assignment that they are supposed to be working on for the next week. And the generally accepted rule among monkeys; Do no work for substitute teachers, no matter their educational backgrounds in English and writing.
Excuse number B; To maintain discipline you have to know the kids. Here’s the most pernicious problem that substitute teachers are saddled with. I had never seen over ninety-five percent of these squirrel monkeys before… not in their natural habitat… not even in cages at the zoo. Boy, do the nerd-like teacher-pleasers who are actually classroom comedians and attack-monkeys in disguise really mount up in that particular saddle and ride you for the rest of the monkey-rodeo you thought was going to be a writing class.
Excuse-a-me Three; There are too many monkeys in the monkey house. Especially the Avid class of 30 super-heated seventh and eighth grade warm bodies that I had to teach as a bonus-penalty for being a “good” substitute. AVID is a special program for troubled and at-risk kids where you put them together with a good teacher and treat them like gifted students and set their lovely little monkey-feet on a path to college. Except, this under-funded special program that works spectacularly well in some schools, is basically misused and abused across Texas where practically all kids who are not white or not wealthy are at-risk for one reason or another. I got to walk into a classroom cold with these thirty high-risk monkeys because no other sub had signed up for this particular nightmare job. No lesson plans were available. No attendance sheets were ready. And it was a science lab, so the room was filled with kids who had helped themselves to rulers and yardsticks with which they were conducting sword-fights. The teacher next door who was giving a test found for me a stack of worksheets to give out. I located a class list to use for attendance. And then I proceeded to put them into seats with work to do and threatened several lives and put one overly-aggressive girl in temporary time-out and denied restroom privileges to scores of kids who probably weren’t going to actually explode into showers of pee. And I didn’t keep them quiet, but when the bell finally rang 50 hour-long minutes later, no one had died a horrible death. And they all had their clothes still on. And it appeared that the structural integrity of the classroom was still sound enough for one more class period. And I, of course, had to quickly rush back to the 6th graders for the worst class of the day.
Excuse-a-me Finale; The sub in the room next door was more incompetent than I was on this particular day. That isn’t really an excuse for my poor showing, but it at least made me feel sorry for someone besides myself. Some of his students came to me as their next official class, already charged up for a super-fun murder-the-sub day. Some of the students who came to me had to go to him for their next period and tried to stay in my room instead. Some of his students went for extended tours of the parts of the campus where they knew no assistant principal or security guard would be. There were fights in that class. They were banging on the the walls. They were noisier than my classes. The poor young guy had none of the substitute survival skills that I had, and I was too pressed to help him at all. But he was young and healthy. He had apparently been there for a couple of weeks as he was doing a long-term job for a history teacher who was having a baby. So, he will soon learn that he does not want to become a Texas public school teacher in his future.
So, as a disciplinarian, I was really dumb for a day. I do know how to handle these things correctly, and I will make future posts about the How-to-s of that. But for today, it is enough to say that I survived to teach another day.
Now, you probably remember that Trav Dalgoda was sitting up in orbit around the planet Farwind on the ship he now commanded with lots of toys to play with. He had particle beam weapons and ion weapons that could reach the planet from space. You can probably imagine he was in Goof Heaven and everyone else under his command had to be in Nervous Hell.
“Don’t you want to stop playing with those red buttons, Trav?” asked Dana Cole sweetly.
“Oh, I love these weapons. I haven’t played with things like this since that gigantic forest fire on the planet Samothrace. You could see that one burning from space, I’ll tell you what.”
“Still, you know, there are other things to do besides constantly targeting different things that are visible on the planet.”
“Yeah, I know. But… what, for instance?”
“Well… I. uh…”
“You know, you look pretty in that uniform.”
“Thank you, Trav. I’m so glad you finally noticed.”
“Oh, I always notice you. You are one hot hoochie mama!”
Dana frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I really like you. In fact, I think I’m gonna need you with me always. Hey, I can get an unobstructed target lock on the industrial complex at Cyber City! Cool deal!”
Dana nervously undid the jacket buttons of her uniform. She had nothing on underneath, and the full glory of her cleavage and her navel were revealed. Her hands were actually shaking. This seduction might be needed to save lives.
“Notice anything else about my uniform, sailor boy?”
“Yeah, Little Jester, your front came undone. Better button up so that you won’t be out of uniform.”
Dana’s jaw set grimly. Some forms of stupidity are too immense to be believable. Never-the-less, no matter how exaggerated it may seem, there is almost always an example somewhere of every kind of idiot behavior.
“Did you notice how I had your ancient artifact set up on the bridge?” Dana pointed at the evil coffee machine where it was percolating with eerie green lights in the middle of the bridge. The other bridge officers walked around it as if it were a sleeping baby, an excessively evil sleeping baby. Tiptoes were almost not enough.
“Ah, yes, my beautiful Tesserah! I love the way it gleams and smells like napalm in the morning.”
“Maybe you should examine it more closely. It’s been thirty minutes since you looked at it last.”
Trav’s grin was maniacal. He strode over to the pulsing artifact. He put both hands on it. “Ah, has oo missed yer daddy? I wuv oo, yes, I do.”
The behavior made Dana almost sick to her stomach. As he petted the thing and nearly made love to it, she couldn’t help but think this was the worst assignment she had ever drawn from the evil creepers of Expedition One.
The arc-welder burned a gaping hole through the lowest level of the underwater dome on Farwind. Water began gushing in before the trooper had finished cutting the hole.
“Won’t this flood the dome?” Ferrari asked through the metal commo dot attached inside his underwater helmet. “Shouldn’t we be finding another way inside?”
“Don’t worry, Commander,” said a trooper in his yellow and blue battle armor, “We will only flood the ground floor to the level of our waists. We’ve successfully done this operation before.”
“Before? You’ve invaded this dome before?”
“Yes, during the last insurrection. It isn’t our fault the civilian government couldn’t hold out against Brona Tang.”
The trooper’s words inspired absolutely no confidence in any of us. We were in this thing way over our heads, and I don’t mean just because we were at the bottom of the sea.
As water rushed inside the dome, the gaping hole was suddenly big enough for armored men to walk through. This we did, single file. The Commander led the way, followed by Duke Ferrari, Ham Aero, six troopers, and then me. The rest of the troops were guarding the rear.
Inside the dome, water was gushing like a series of water-park fountains splashing amok. It looked to me like the water really could rush in and fill the entire dome.
The Commander took off the helmet he wore and pitched it aside. “Tac-Officer! Give me a readout on the enemy positions. Do they have a scan-lock on us yet?”
The man in the suit with all the wires and antennas took off his helmet and began studying a monitor that popped out of his armored chest-plate.
Ferrari stepped forward to consult. “Commander, I think we should find the control room and try to capture this place from its top.”
“You are not a military man. Leave this to us,” snapped the Commander.
“Uh, sir…” The Tac-Officer was pale. “We have a problem.”
The Commander frowned at him. He opened his mouth to say something cruel in the way commanding officers usually do when they hear things they don’t like. Suddenly, we heard ominous sounds all around us. Guns were being cocked and plasma weapons began to hum. Above us, a ring of troopers in black combat armor stood up, training at least a hundred different weapons on our exposed position.
“Does this seem bad to you?” I asked Ham.
Ham had just taken off his diving helmet and now he smiled at the deadly arsenal arrayed against us. “This comes under the general heading of not good, yes.” I noticed he was strikingly handsome when he smiled.
“You gentlemen must surrender immediately,” said one of the black figures surrounding us. “We have orders to kill you all and leave no member of your group alive.”
“It is troublesome how the military mind usually works,” I said. “I suppose this is the end for me.”
“Yes…” said Ham, no longer smiling. “This is not good at all!”
Ged had begun to feel at ease with the strange ninja powers he had absorbed by eating the Black Spider Leader while in the form of a dinosaur. He was a master of The Discipline now. Back on Earth in the time before travel between the stars, this Discipline had been known as K’ung Fu. The Black Spider Leader had mastered the jump-kicks of WuShu and the graceful, swift hand-to-hand combat known as Wing Chung. Because the skill had been trained into The Black Spider Leader’s muscle memory, Ged had absorbed it whole, even if he did not have the philosophies that were supposed to go with it. One thing he liked about it, though, was that it allowed him to defeat and overpower an opponent without doing permanent damage. Ged had never loved killing the way Trav Dalgoda loved it. He always preferred the bloodless victory, whether over man or beast. The prey was always to be honored and respected. And the prey was not to be stalked if it was not capable of self-defense.
In the heart of the Celestial Dragon was a large, gym-like room that was perfect for giving students lessons in the art of the Discipline. It had a soft, forgiving floor, plenty of room, and a pair of bathing pools that provided purified water for drinking or bathing. It was in this room which Ged now called the Practice Center that he was trying to impart his skills to Shu Kwai, Junior, Billy Iowa, and Rocket Rogers. The Phoenix and Hassan Parker sat at the side, both cross-legged, watching with great interest.
“The simplest form of this move is a shield, making it an effective block to the offensive strikes I have shown you,” said Ged, demonstrating an arc of the right arm in a circle to his right side.
“You know,” said Phoenix, “Master Bres taught Alec and me a very similar stroke, but it led to a killing strike to the neck or groin.”
Ged looked grimly at the red-haired boy. “I prefer not to attach that sort of thing to this move, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I think I prefer your way,” said Phoenix with a smug grin. “It will prolong the battle and make things much closer. You know, more challenging.”
“It allows you to protect yourself without killing,” reminded Ged. The other boys all looked at him with questioning faces.
“If Alec were here, he’d say it protects you better to end it quickly. Bres would say that the kill is the only worthy goal.”
“I would rather not be compared to Bres, if you don’t mind.”
Phoenix smiled a more genuine smile. “You don’t have to convince me, sensei. You are much better at this than the new Black Spider Leader. It is because your motives are so much purer than his, I think.”
“Thank you.”
Ged allowed Billy Iowa to try an offensive strike. Four times he deflected it easily. The move worked.
“Practice with your partner,” said Ged.
Shu Kwai paired himself with Rocket. Junior squared off with Billy. All four of them were dressed simply in loin covers and tabai boots. Rocket also wore his ever-present cowboy hat. Ged watched bare arms and legs flashing as they worked on the technique. All four boys were distinctly different from each other. Shu’s skin was yellow-orange in the Gaijinese manner. Rocket was a pale peach color like Ged himself. Billy was Indian bronze, while Junior was blue. Still, Ged couldn’t help but marvel at how they meshed together whenever they tried to accomplish the same goal.
“You know,” said Ged, “It is our differences that make us strong as a whole. We are blessed by being different, complementing each other.”
Phoenix laughed. “Is that wisdom, sensei?”
“I hope it is,” said Ged, somewhat sheepishly. It wasn’t easy to tell if he’d really won Phoenix over or not. The boy was more dangerous than the others, his Galtorrian lizard eyes so much harder to read.
Suddenly there was a loud fwooping noise. Two more students appeared in the Practice Center. They were both naked and connected to each other in the most embarrassing way possible. It was a deeply blushing Alec Songh with a writhing, moaning Jadalaqstbr held in his arms.
Ged was a little shocked, to say the least.
“What is going on here?” asked Shu Kwai, immediately incensed at what he saw. Rocket and Billy couldn’t help but giggle. Junior looked on with fascination.
“Ooops!” said Alec. “I guess it’s pretty obvious what is going on.” He pulled away from the girl, trying to cover his embarrassment with his hands. “What I’m wondering is how we ended up here?”
As young Jackie came to her senses again, she couldn’t help but blush deeply also. “I guess I lost control of my power. I’m so sorry, Alec.”
“Hmm,” said Ged. “I believe this is a breakthrough, although I would’ve preferred to find it out a different way.”
“What do you mean, sensei?” asked Shu Kwai.
“Well, we did not know before it was possible for a Psion like Jackie to teleport two people,” said Ged. “We need to know if it can be done again.”
“I’m sorry, sensei,” said Jadalaqstbr. “I was so overpowered by a new experience that I didn’t know what I was doing. My inner eye activated almost by itself.”
“Can you teleport back to the room you were in, get your clothes on, and both come back here again?”
“I don’t know,” said the embarrassed girl. “Do you think we have to be doing the same thing on the way back?”
“Yes!” said Rocket. “Try that again!”
Jackie blushed.
“No,” said Ged. “Hold onto him and try to take him with you.”
The girl gingerly took hold of Alec’s arms again. The fwooping sounded again and the two students were gone as suddenly as they had come.
“Should you have let them go like that?” asked Shu Kwai. “Don’t you think they need to be punished for what they were doing?”
Ged shook his head. Perhaps Shu was right. Still, who was Ged to judge the guilt of others in this area? “We cannot punish them for being humanoid. I will talk with Alec about it, but it is really a thing between their consciences and themselves.”
In a few more moments, the two children reappeared, this time fully clothed from head to toe. It was obvious they had felt quite mortified by their experience. Jadalaqstbr had demonstrated before that teleporting with clothes on was not difficult.
“Before the lectures begin,” said Alec with a frown, “I want to tell you, sensei, that I love her. I am not just defying you. And, Shu, it’s none of your frakking business what Jackie and I do.”
“I love him too, sensei,” said Jadalaqstbr. “He didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”
Ged nodded. “We need to have a private discussion. This class is dismissed for now.”
The boys all filed away, Alec and Jackie staying behind to face the music. Alec had a look of determined defiance on his face. The music would have to be about birds and bees, and right and wrong. Ged knew what a parent and teacher would have to say in this situation, his mother had once had this discussion with Ham and Ged. It wasn’t going to make things any easier for any of them, though, especially Ged.
Arkin Cloudstalker and his friend Lazerstone walked into the starport center in the planet known as Ibiguy. This stop on their journey had been a necessity brought on by lack of supplies and fuel aboard the little scout ship they now flew. It was only one small needle-like wedge of mechanical parts to use in the quest to puncture holes in the fabric of space and re-unite Cloudstalker with his Lady Knights.
Swirls of orange dust flew about the grand concourse in this starport. It was a parched and cracked desert world, this Ibiguy. It was one small discordant note in the symphony of space and time. It was also a hardship to travelers. There was no water and little hydrogen in this system to use as fuel for starships. It had to be purchased at the starport in order to move along to the next stanza in their travels through the star lanes.
Many alien eyes pondered the odd pair as they walked through the starport. Birdlike aliens, wedge-headed aliens, oceanic aliens wearing suits filled with salty water, and star-fish shaped aliens known as Sparkies. This world, rarely used by Galtorr Imperials, had become a haven to those who were persecuted, especially those known as Un-Humans because their make-up was not humanoid. Freaks, too, who had slipped away from their forced servitude, found sanctuary in this place. For obvious reasons, the starport had only planet-bound elements, a downport. There was no space station or space port in the system.
“I don’t understand,” said Arkin, inclining his cowboy-hatted head towards Lazerstone, “why are they watching us?”
“I sense anticipation. Their pulse and surge rates are all slightly elevated, indicating anxiety of some sort.”
“Yes, I feel it. Can you tell what might be causing it?”
“Is there an angry cyborg in your past?”
“What?” Arkin’s eyes grew round and fearful.
“There is a being re-animated with artificial energy flows behind us. He is seventy-two per cent metallic and eight per cent polymer. He has been trailing us since we passed through the first security gate.”
“It’s Ace Campfield.” Arkin tried to pretend that the music of the universe was not pounding out an eerie tuba score that made the heart rate climb dramatically.
“We know he’s there,” cautioned Lazerstone. “I can see him even when he’s hiding because I don’t rely on eyes to see. It gives us a tactical advantage.”
“Tactical advantage?”
“I can’t read minds, but I know he’s got a small plasma weapon that he is firing up for use. We can attack first.”
Arkin began to sweat profusely. He only narrowly escaped the bounty-hunting Mechanoid the last time. This would have to be a fatal confrontation, one way or another.
“He’s hideous in a way,” commented Lazerstone. “He is a creature who’s not fully alive and certainly not dead. His cold heart seems to be without feeling.”
“You’re going to say it again, aren’t you?”
“What? Fascinating?”
“Yes, that. You got it from ancient holovids, didn’t you Mr. Vulcan?”
“Yes. It’s a good word. But I am not Spock.”
“Fascinating.”
Arkin pulled his gauss pistol and dove to the right. Lazerstone dove to the left. They both rolled and came up pointing their weapons at a surprised Ace Campfield.
“What? You will shoot me with those things? A speedy slug thrower and a finger?”
“Yes,” said Arkin, pulling the trigger. The gauss pistol launched its accelerated slug at mach 4 and Lazerstone simultaneously launched crystal shards from the end of his finger. The slug tore through Ace’s cranium, breaking circuitry and slagging connections. The crystal shards flew past the rotted head and plunged into the ground in five places.
The face of Ace Campfield wrinkled upwards into a skeletal grin of pure mockery. “Didn’t feel a thing!” He raised his plasma handgun to point it at Arkin’s white face.
Out of the ground surrounding Campfield, five crystal arms rose out of the dirt like a scene from a George Romero movie. Each grabbed the bounty-hunter, pulling at him from a different direction.
“What the…?”
Ace’s arms and legs splintered as the five new Lazerstones stood up, rending him limb from limb.
“Curse you, you alien scum!” cried the limbless torso that was previously Ace Campfield.
“Sorry there were only five of us to answer the call,” said Lazerstone, “but there’s a limited amount of harmonic quartz on this planet.”
Arkin smiled and nodded at his friend. “Fascinating!”
Tron and Maggie needed the Megadeath and her crew to bolster the defense forces of Outpost. So, it was simply a matter of finding a ship they could spare to send Artran to safety with Ged on whatever planet the hunter now inhabited.
“I can’t afford to send a single Pinwheel or White Sword out of system. We lost too many to defend our planet already. And we have to assume this base is no longer a secret to Grand Admiral Tang.” Tron glared at his difficult wife.
“This is our only son we are talking about,” argued Maggie. “He is a cargo worth protecting. That’s why we are bothering to send him to Ged Aero in the first place.”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance, sir,” offered Bill the Postman (secretly Scarpigo Snarcs). “Your wife is going to win this argument, or I don’t know anything about wives.”
“Have you been married before?” asked Tron, fixing the clown with a laser-eyed look from both his artificial eye and his natural one.
“Of course not! I told you I knew all about wives didn’t I?”
“So, what’s your worthless advice, then?”
“I am disguised as a competent member of the Imperial Scout Service. So, I can take him to his destination without being fired upon in any X-boat that is delivering mail.”
“How is that secure enough for my precious boy?” asked Maggie.
“Well, I will be delivering the Imperial mail. You know the Imperial Space Navy does not shoot down its own mail service, even on the frontier.”
“He has a good point, Maggie,” said an exasperated Tron.
“What about Star Dogs? They do attack Scout ships of all kinds.”
“That’s true, dogs does chase postmen,” offered Quintillius Blorghoffer (secretly Cinco Snarcs disguised as a Scout Service Postman), “But me brudder an’ I is two of de bestest secret-type agent-men going, an’ our X-boat is secretly armed with a meson cannon, don’t ya know. Ain’t that right, Pontoffel Poggs?”
Zero Snarcs (disguised as the above-mentioned Poggs the Postman) vigorously shook his head.
“He says you don’t?” asked Maggie angrily.
“Oh, he don’t know no better. He shakes his head like that when he means ta say yes. He’s just too stupid to talk.”
“Okay, I have my doubts now, too,” said Tron.
“Please, sir,” said Tiki Astro, “I am fully programmed to problem-solve and defend Artran. Who better to send along with him as he travels in secret than I?”
Tron looked at the artificial child. With his new skin covering his metalloid body, he was completely indistinguishable from a real child. He would indeed be the perfect travelling companion to keep Artran safe.
“Yes. That settles it. Artran goes in the X-boat with the three idiots to be with Ged Aero in relative safety.”
Maggie sighed and nodded agreement.
Happy Jack sighed and then hugged his artificial son goodbye.
The three idiot postmen and the two children boarded the balloon-shaped X-boat and immediately took off from Outpost.
Once they reached the orbital jump point, Bill the Postman turned to Pontoffel Poggs (which was actually Scarpigo Snarcs turning to Zero Snarcs) and said, “Okay, boy, spin the directional dial and then spin the distance dial.”
Poggs (who was actually Snarcs) spun both dials like he was playing Intergalactic Wheel of Fortune.
“It says we are jumping a hundred and twelve parsecs into the middle of unknown space,” warned Blorghoffer (who was also secretly Snarcs).
“That’s perfect!” said Bill (secretly… well, you know). He then smashed the jump button and folded space to a distance that would normally destroy an X-boat.
After an undeterminable amount of time they exited jump space into a black void. But at it’s center glittered a multitude of artificial lights from a construct seemingly sewn together with steel beams and made from junk spaceship fuselages, broken satellites, abandoned space stations, and unidentifiable metal things from unknown space.
“Ah, I didn’t actually think that would work,” said Bill.
“Where are we?” asked Artran and Tiki at almost the same moment.
“This, my boys, is Nomad. This is the home of the Star Nomads.”
“An’ I always thinked that Star Nomads be Myths,” said Blorghoffer.
“Just because something is a myth doesn’t mean it’s not true,” said Bill.
Canto 72: When the Ocean Rises Up (the Blood-Red Thread)
As the Leaping Shadowcat pulled into orbit around the third planet of the Red Giant called FarStar 181 and its white dwarf companion Littlebit 181, we were playing a fierce game of Antarean Canasta while watching local television to get a clue or two about what was happening in the star system. The planet Farwind was a center of trade, culture, and travel along the Galtorrian Imperial Rim.
“I have a run of five showing,” I said to Sinbadh, Ham, and Duke Ferrari. “It will cost you each a thousand credits to find out if I can complete it.” I was winning the hand again and glorying in it. I regularly made killings in card games because I could keep track of all the cards and the odds in my head.
“Something just isn’t right here,” moaned Ham Aero. “I’ve never seen a nerdy guy like you win so often at a game of chance.”
“Oi seconds the observation, Doctor Marou,” said Sinbadh. “Ye play a cutthroat game ye do.”
“Why thank you, Mr. Sinbadh. I may not be a capable pirate like you, but I earn my respect in more than one way.”
“Aye, ‘tis true,” sighed Sinbadh. “I can’t afford to call yer jolly bluff, Doc. I folds.”
“Me too,” said Duke Ferrari stroking his handlebar moustache with a nervous finger as he tossed his hand down. “I don’t know how you are cheating, Dr. Marou, but I must say, you are good at it!”
“Well,” said Ham with grim determination, “I may lose all my savings, but I have to know if it’s a bluff or not.”
Ham threw the last of his credit chips onto the game board.
“I was hoping somebody would,” I said. I laid down the six and seven of clovers to make a run of seven. “I guess I win.”
“Nobody is that good at cards,” Ham said, shaking his blond head sadly.
The holo-news was describing a recent political rally in the government center of Farwind. People there were upset about the despotic rule of the Galtorr Imperium. The taxes paid to old Emperor Slythinus were bad enough, but the local sector head, Emperor Mong of the planet Mingo, was placing burden after burden on the people, and on top of that, demanded that they yield up their buried dead to Centralis Controllis, the Master Computer of Mingo Sector.
“I guess I’m going to have to go down there and make an official appearance,” said Duke Ferrari. His face was long and worried. “The political situation here is still degenerating.”
“Word has come,” said the talking head from the holo-news, “That Sector Duke Han Ferrari has returned to us and is in orbit even as we speak.”
Ferrari was aghast. “How did they know that?”
The warning sirens from the auto-sensors came on at that same moment. A system defense boat was fast approaching from the upper atmosphere of the planet.
“Oh, God help us,” said Ham, overturning the game board and scattering my earnings everywhere. “We have got such trouble!”
We all followed Ham from the lounge area to the bridge. The screens were showing a large system defense ship bristling like a porcupine with defensive weaponry.
“It’s definitely a government ship!” said Duke Ferrari. “If we let them arrest me without resistance, it’s possible they will let the rest of you go free.”
“That clunky thing cannot out-fly me,” swore Ham, “If you want me to run…”
“No,” said the Duke. “Let’s hail them.”
The captain of the defense boat was quickly called up and on screen.
“You are here for me, I take it,” the Duke said to the on-screen captain.
“Yessir!” The captain of the other ship saluted crisply. “By the command of the people of Farwind, we humbly request that you let us escort you to Farwind Downport.”
“Escort us?”
“Yes, your highness. The people of Farwind have just completed a coup of the government. We want a democracy like you tried to institute on Coventry, and we want you to lead us!”
The Duke’s surprise was enormous. “The people decided this?”
“Yessir! There’s only one little problem for you to deal with first. The governors of the Imperium have fortified themselves inside the undersea dome at Farwind Center. It’s a well-guarded and very secure facility. The people want you to lead the assault.”
“Good god, man,” moaned Ferrari, a hand dragging across the left side of his face where he’d just slapped himself. “I’m no military leader. Is this mission even possible?”
“We hope so, sir. It’s the will of the people.”
Ferrari looked at all of us aboard the Shadowcat. “I can’t ask any of you to sacrifice yourselves on this fool’s mission. We will be killed and it will all be for nothing.”
Ham grinned. He was handsome when he smiled. “If Goofy were here right now, he’d say what are we waiting for?”
“You… you mean, you want to come with me?”
“We live for adventure! Don’t we, guys?”
“Well, er… woof, that is,” said Sinbadh.
“No, I surely don’t,” I said.
“See,” said Ham, “it’s settled! When do we attack? And why do you call yourself Shirley Doant, professor?”
Canto 71 – In the Belly of the Dragon (the White Thread)
Inside the massive ancient device shaped like a dragon, the students of Ged Aero discovered a long corridor and a number of rooms that looked like the inside of a spaceship, yet not like any spaceship any of them had ever entered.
“It’s something like a Nebulon Space Whale,” said Gyro. “The walls and floors and ceilings are all made of pliable materials that bend and warp as the artificial creature moves, yet I can sense that it is entirely unliving in the same way as something made of stone or rigid metal.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty weird in here,” said little Mai Ling.
“Junior? Are you still in telepathic contact with its artificial mind?” Ged asked.
“Yes, Sensei. But it is complex. It thinks in algorithms faster than I can learn from it.”
“We have to master this wonderful thing,” said Phoenix. “It is the most elegant and brilliant travel machine I have ever seen.”
“Where is the control center… the bridge for the ship?” asked Shu Kwai.
“Directly above us,” answered Junior, straining to keep up with the flood of input from his unique form of telepathy.
“Can you find the way in?” asked Sara.
“I think I can open it.”
Red, blue, and yellow lights flashed in pulsating patterns along the red-brown walls. Then a hidden hatchway opened above their heads. A ladder that was made of some sort of high-tech bone or stone dropped to the floor.
“Permission to lead the way?” asked Billy. “I can use my clairvoyance to see what’s ahead.”
“Yes, Billy-san, lead the way,” said Ged with a satisfied smile.
Billy Iowa climbed like squirrel monkey, zipping up through the hole in the ceiling in almost no time. Then he signaled the others to follow. One by one they all scaled the ladder and entered the large control room of the dragon ship.
It was a room shaped like the top of the dragon’s head in the carved statue of the dragon gate that existed outside and all around the ancient device.
“This will be such a shame to shatter the walls and city gate in order to use this spaceship,” Ged muttered, intending to talk to himself mainly.
“As far as I can tell, we don’t have to destroy the gate or walls to free the dragon from them. It is showing me a schematic that suggests the whole thing teleports from here out into space. The structure of the city walls and gate were built to remain standing when the dragon leaves. It can also return and hide in the same place.” Junior had answered in an almost mechanical way.
“Junior? Do you need to rest your telepathy a bit?” suggested Sara.
“Um, well… let me do two more things first.”
The panels where the dragon’s eyes were located on the outside of the gate suddenly irised open, though nothing could be seen through them. The six holes in the ceiling that then opened up each lowered a helmet attached to a long, glowing filament that tethered it to the computerized brain above.
“What are these for?” asked Hassan.
Junior fell to his knees, practically exhausted to the point of unconsciousness.
“Junior!” Sara took hold of him and cradled him on her lap on the control-room floor.
“We… we are going to have to experiment. So much of this is too complicated for me to understand without a great deal of study.” Junior closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep.
“So, when do we move our stuff from the Palace into this thing?” asked Alec.
“There is no hurry. We need to give Junior time to learn this thing’s complicated operations. And we need to explore the whole of the ship. We cannot simply jump into a thing like this and take off. We don’t even know yet where we must go. Somebody is going to have to study those damned books of prophecy too.” Ged surveyed the faces of his students. Freddy, Rocket, Phoenix, and Billy had started grinning at each other when Ged had mentioned the word, “explore”. Gyro was lost in thought examining a helmet. Hassan was looking about with a bored expression. Jackie, Mai Ling, Taffy, and Sara were all gathered around Junior and tending to him or lending concern. Only Alec was glaring back at Ged.
Catch a Falling Star 