Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (48 page)

“I don’t think you do, not entirely.”

He hesitated, then said, “The navigation chamber may have only been in my dream, but it seemed fantastically real. I felt as if I was at the controls of the podship, speeding through deep space. Without touching anything, I was using my brain signals to direct the vessel. It responded for awhile, then wouldn’t anymore. It was like …”

“Like what?”

The two of them were standing outside the waiting room of the pod station. Noah considered how to answer her, but his thoughts drifted away, like balloons floating up on a sudden breeze, just beyond a child’s grasp. He stared at the wall next to them, then looked along the walkway.

Like podships themselves, pod stations were mottled gray and black, with not-quite clear, filmy sections for windows. He’d heard that pod stations were also living creatures, just as the podships were, but they didn’t travel the podways of deep space like the ships. That left open the question as to how the pod stations—which were much larger than the sentient spacecraft—ever got sprinkled around the galaxy in the first place.

Perhaps the stations had once been spacefaring vessels themselves, and went into retirement. Or maybe they were amalgams of retired podships, having fused themselves together into different shapes. In any event, all of the ships and stations had an obvious symbiotic relationship, like different parts of one immense galactic organism. Noah had more questions than answers.

With a start, he realized that Tesh had been saying something to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Guess I’m not totally out of my coma. As I said, when I was asleep all that time, I had strange, vivid dreams.”

“You thought you were in some kind of a navigation chamber?”

“That’s right.”

“You said the podship responded for awhile, and then wouldn’t do so any longer. You were about to say something more.”

“Well, it seemed like someone else was in the chamber too, fighting me for control of the podship.”

“You
did
have a strange dream,” Tesh said.

“Now tell me how that thing changed from a bunker to a podship,” Noah said, nodding his head toward the vessel.

“Perhaps that’s best answered inside,” she said, leading the way back to the ship.

Intrigued, Noah hobbled along beside her, thumping the crutches on the walkway.

Just as they stepped from the airlock into the cargo hold, Anton greeted them. He looked nervous and upset.

“We need to talk,” the young man said to Tesh.

“This is a not a good time,” she said. “Maybe later?” Tesh looked at him inquisitively, as if concerned about his welfare. This was one of the things that Noah thought he liked about her, the way she seemed so caring, so nurturing. Assuming it was not all an act. He didn’t think it was, but couldn’t quite overcome his feelings of doubt.

“We used to be close,” Anton said, trying to move in front of her. “What went wrong?”

“I’ll talk to you later,” she promised. “I told you, this isn’t a good time.”

As she attempted to walk on, Anton grabbed her arm. She shook him loose, raised her voice. “Well, what is it?” she demanded. “What’s so important?”

“It’s about us, about our relationship.”

“And you’ve chosen to interrupt me when I’m busy? Why is it so urgent?”

“It’s urgent to
me
,” he said, “but I can see it isn’t to you.”

“That’s not true at all!”

“Then why are you and my uncle acting so cozy?”

“The green of jealousy is not a good color on you, Anton.…”

Noah leaned against a bulkhead of the cargo hold. With his arm he felt the leathery flesh of the podship, and he pressed his face against the creature. In the background of his consciousness, the animated voices of Tesh and Anton continued, but faded and blurred. They were occupied with their mounting argument, and weren’t looking at the man with the cane.

They did not notice that Noah’s eyes were closed, and that his eyelids were fluttering, as if in a REM dream state. But he was not sleeping. Far from it …

Chapter Seventy-Two

It is said that success in life is about focus, and lacking that, nothing meaningful can be accomplished. But is that old adage really true? Can’t the wandering heart, the questing soul, achieve even more? Aren’t the highest achievements in God’s universe the simplest, the most pure?

—
The Holy Writ
of the Mutatis

From the open hatch of the grid-plane, Eshaz had been watching Tesh and Anton as they engaged in an animated conversation, and saw Noah Watanabe with them. Despite his injury, Noah was showing grit and tenacity, a desire to continue his life and not complain about his personal misfortune. He had lost his foot, but thanks to the healing nutrients of the timehole, he was out of his coma.

The man had come back from the dead.

But if the Council of Elders ever discovered what Eshaz had done, he would be in a lot of trouble. His mission was to repair timeholes and no more, using proven methods of patching up damage to the sacred web, anywhere in the galaxy. He was not authorized to go beyond that, not sanctioned to use any ancillary skills he had developed over the nine hundred and eighty thousand years of his lifetime. The reason was clear, and he understood it well. Primarily, it was all about concentration, about adhering to priorities. If he did other things, by definition that meant he was neglecting his essential Timeweb maintenance duties.

But Eshaz was, among other things, a timeseer, one of the few Tulyans with the ability to see—though imperfectly—into the future, and into the past. If ordered to do so by the high council, he used that skill for the benefit of the Tulyan race and Timeweb. On occasion, he even did it for other galactic races, for the sometimes-arcane political purposes of the Tulyan Elders. One thing in exchange for another.

Eshaz also knew how to draw beneficial nutrients from a rip in the web, as he had done for Noah’s sake, but this was one of the greatest infractions a Tulyan could commit. Only the most ancient of the ancients were authorized to do that, Tulyan sorcerers who were much older than he was, and who knew much more. He had learned the skill from one of them, with all of the dire warnings that went along with it. A mistake, holding the web open improperly, could result in a huge cataclysm, the collapse of an entire galactic sector.

Thankfully, that calamity had not occurred in this case, and he had repaired the web defect after the healing procedure, along with others he found in the vicinity of the planetary explosion. Still, he could not conceal his transgression from the Elders. The next time he visited the Tulyan Starcloud, he would have to tell his superiors what he had done, and face the consequences.

After healing Noah with the Timeweb connection, Eshaz had noticed a change in his own body, as the aches and pains in his muscles and joints diminished. Physically, he began to feel more like his old self again.

Following the radical procedure, Eshaz had tried to take control of the podship himself, by gaining entrance to the sectoid chamber and merging into the flesh of the creature in the way of his people, but he was prevented from doing so. A Parvii already had it.…

Now, as he stood watching the argument between Tesh and Anton, he noticed that Noah was leaning against a bulkhead, and not looking at all well. His eyes were closed, and he seemed about to fall over.

Eshaz ran to help his friend.

Chapter Seventy-Three

By deeds does a man measure his own personality, and his own worth.

—Anton Glavine,
Reflections

Following the harrowing escape of the treasure crew from the Adurian planet, Acey and Dux gambled their remaining bonus money, and lost all of it to their more experienced mates. Even so, the young men didn’t feel they had lost anything at all. They had begun the space adventure with no assets, only their lives and the clothes on their backs, and now they were distinctly ahead of that. They possessed a newfound wealth of experience, something that could not be purchased at any price or found in any treasure chest.

On the bridge the
Avelo
, the crew huddled around Captain Yuell as he examined one of many parchments in his possession. In his early years the gray-bearded old man had been the heir to a great merchant prince fortune, and had used much of his money to purchase old documents, especially galactic treasure maps. Eventually, his family had fallen into political disfavor and had lost their property and fortune. So, in his middle years, he had run off to space, taking his precious charts with him. He had spent the decades afterward exploring the galaxy, following the documents and discovering that most of them were either erroneous or fraudulent.

But a few were accurate. He had already proven that at Wuxx Reef, and at other spots around the galaxy, according to stories the teenagers had heard about him.

“There,” the old adventurer said, pointing at a star system at the top right corner of the parchment. “We go there!”

* * * * *

On the way, a two day journey to a region where podships supposedly did not venture, Captain Yuell regaled the crew with tales from his own treasure trove of lore. He told of the most unusual aliens in the “wide, wide galaxy,” of Wolfen midgets and lighter-than-air creatures, of humanoids five meters tall, and of the renowned mind-readers of Eleo.

Then, just as the battered but venerable
Avelo
entered a small solar system whose red dwarf sun glistened off the craft, the captain said, “But none are more unusual than the Gamboliers of Ovinegg. That’s their primary planet,” he said, pointing to a world that glistened a dreary shade of brown in the diminished light. Moment by moment, the oval shape of Ovinegg drew closer.

An air of anticipation filled the passenger cabin of the ship. Thus far, however, as the world loomed larger and larger, Dux was less than impressed. Through the hazy atmosphere he didn’t see any bodies of water down there at all, and wondered if they were brown and polluted, like the seemingly treeless landscape. From the edge of the atmospheric envelope, he didn’t see mountains or any other topographical features, either.

“It looks like a misshapen rubber ball,” Dux said.

“Is that why the people are called Gamboliers?” one of the men asked, “because they bounce and jump around on the surface?”

“Nice guess,” Captain Yuell said, “but that’s not even close. The Treasure of Ovinegg awaits us, lads, but the question is, which of you are brave enough to go get it.?”

“I am, sir!” Acey said. “And so’s my cousin Dux.” The two of them stepped forward, but Dux did not feel as enthusiastic as his cousin. He hoped Acey’s bravado didn’t get them into trouble.

“I’m ready too, sir,” the Hibbil Mac Golden said, pushing the youngest crewmen aside. “Just tell us where to find the goods, and we’ll bring ‘em back.”

“Well,” the captain responded with a broad smile, “the goods are just lying down there for the picking. Piles of priceless gems, and they don’t even need to be mined.”

“If it’s that easy,” one of the crewmen said, “why haven’t we heard of this place before?”

“Because you’re stupid,” one of the men shouted.

Laughter ensued. But all around, Dux heard his mates talking about how none of them had heard of the Treasure of Ovinegg, or the Gamboliers, or this solar system.

“Here’s how it works,” Captain Yuell said. “The Gamboliers don’t allow foreign spacecraft to land on their homeworld. All visitors must leap from a shuttle no closer than two thousand meters above the planet.”

He paused, and looked from face to face. “Without parachutes,” he added.

“We just jump like rocks?” Mac Golden asked in his squeaky voice. Nervously, he adjusted his eye patch, and inched a couple of steps back.

“They’re supposed to catch you. The Gamboliers are quite expert at catching people as they fly out of the sky, with fire rescue nets and other techniques. After you land, they bestow great wealth on you for your bravery.”

“Why don’t we just sneak down there and gather treasure?” Acey asked.

“Because they’ll catch us and kill us. They promise a horrendous death for anyone who doesn’t follow the rules. Oh, one more thing. I didn’t mention it before, but I never got any money from being in a wealthy merchant prince family. I made my whole life story up. Actually, I got my money here, on Ovinegg when I was a young man, not much older than you two. I earned it and spent it, and now I need to replenish my stockpile.”

“And the rules are still the same down there?” one of the crewmen asked.

“Those rules have been around for millennia, and when I was there I saw no sign of anything changing. That was forty-four years ago, not long to a civilization like theirs.”

A palpable, worried silence filled the cabin.

“I’d like to see us all go home rich,” Captain Yuell said, “but if I’m the only one going, that’s fine, too. In case something goes wrong, you’ll find my will on the ship’s computer, with my virtual signature. I leave the
Avelo
to all of you equally.”

Again, he looked from face to face. “Are any of you still with me?”

At first, no one answered.

Then Acey said. “I’m with you, Captain. And so is my cousin Dux.” He looked at Dux, and smiled. “Right, buddy?”

Reluctantly, Dux nodded.

There were no other volunteers.

At Captain Yuell’s command, the pilot steered the vessel into position, cutting down into the atmosphere, a couple of thousand meters above the surface. Then Yuell and his two young devotees jumped into the hazy sky and plunged downward.

Chapter Seventy-Four

No matter the excellence of your skills, no matter how superior you think you are, there is always someone who surpasses you, and there is always be someone to outdo him as well. It is this way across the entire galaxy, and throughout every eon of time. Most of us think there is only one zenith of attainment, in God Almighty. But is he the supreme being of only one galaxy? Or are there other galaxies, and superior gods?

—
Scienscroll
Apocrypha