Authors: Gillian Andrews
“Of course we will help!” Six grabbed Diva’s hand. “We are ready. But how can we get there?”
“The part of Arcan which is still conscious here” —Six and Diva exchanged quick glances; that sounded terrible— “says he thinks he can put the New Independence in orbit around the moon. But he asks that you hurry; his strength is already failing.”
Six nodded and his fingers tightened even more on Diva’s hand. “You know what will happen if Arcan gets trapped on the planet – he wouldn’t be able to escape, and the Dessites could destroy him totally.”
Diva nodded. “Then we should get started. We can take the morphics, can’t we?”
The visitor shimmered. “I cannot go, of course,” —he sounded mortified— “but the twins are reasonably immune to the Dessites. They will meet you behind the moon; they are monitoring the situation for us. But they can’t get anywhere near Arcan at the moment; the nanographite would trap them too if they went onto the surface of the planet. You will have to take the two shuttles down on your own.”
“Two shuttles?” questioned Six.
The visitor shimmered. “One for you and Diva to share with Bennel; one for Grace, Ledin and Tallen.”
Six nodded, but looked over at the girl who had once saved him from her own brother. “That will be better. But, Grace, are you fit enough to go with us?”
“Of course I am. I will leave Temar with the man who contrives children.” Grace had coloured and was now staring crossly around at them. “Arcan is going to need us all. Of course I must go. Don’t … don’t even think about leaving me behind!”
Six looked at Diva, a question in his eyes.
Diva was remembering that shared moment of recognition only a short while ago, but she also knew that neither she nor Grace could possibly leave Arcan to his fate, whatever the cost. The Coriolan girl shook her head. “No. If Grace says she is ready, then she is. And it sounds as if we should all go. If the Dessites really have got their fronds on some part of Arcan it’s odds on to a vaniven that they will slice him up to help them on their travels. They have to be stopped!”
The visitor shone brightly. “That is what I thought. I am happy you do not think I am mistaken.”
Six stared at the bimorph. He didn’t usually sound so humble.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
“Certainly. Why?”
“No, nothing. Only you don’t usually admit that you might be wrong.”
“I have never excluded the possibility. It is unlikely, because I am now nearly a category 1 species, but that doesn’t mean it could never happen.”
“Hmm. Wonders will never cease!”
“Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“I’m sorry? Why should wonders never cease? I believe, with the expansion of the universe, that everything will eventually freeze into isolation and become lifeless. At that time, one might reasonably be able to say that wonders have ceased, do you not think?”
“I expect you will still be droning on, though,” said Six.
“I believe it to be bees who drone. I do not think I am capable of such a sound.”
“You amaze me,” said Six, trying to look polite and failing spectacularly. Diva grinned, but gave him a look to tell him to shut up. He indicated that it had been the visitor who had started it all, but she signaled her doubt of the veracity of that statement, and the scene deteriorated into a tense silence.
“Anyway,” said Six in a bright tone. “I suppose, if we have to go back to Dessia, we should get ready.”
“Ledin is already on the Kwaide Orbital Space Station, he knows to make sure that the shuttles and the New Independence are sufficiently well stocked,” the visitor told him. “The rest of you can join him there in two hours, at first light on Dessia.”
Six grunted. “It would have been better to wait for the night.”
“If we had had enough time, we would have.” He found Six always irritating and generally obtuse, but suspected that Diva would become inflamed if he mentioned this.
“Then we will be ready,” Diva told the small entity. “In any case, the 100% humidity will make it hard for them to see us. It is bound to be either raining or foggy there. What do you suggest we do when we get to the planet?”
The morphic seemed to be consulting with the distant trimorphs, judging from the flashes coming from him, and there was a pause before the visitor answered.
“We think that, if you can find the orthogel on the floating island, you will have to eliminate it.”
Diva’s head lifted quickly at that. “Eliminate it? Kill Arcan? How?”
“You would be killing part of Arcan, but not all. He insists on the necessity. This time you will have to take explosives down with you. It may be the only way. There is a small chance that you can help Arcan to gain control back inside the island, but it is a very slim one. The trimorphs say that it would be impossible for Arcan to escape the confines of the trap on his own, and they already have over ten tons of him trapped; so there is no way you could carry him out physically. If you can, bring part of the orthogel with you when you leave. If you can’t … it may be necessary to destroy it completely. Arcan tells us that the part of him still left on Valhai will probably survive, provided all links between it and the trapped portion of him are severed.”
“Probably? PROBABLY? Arcan is our friend! We can’t allow this to happen!”
“Whatever happens, the Dessites now know about the orthogel and how to drag it over to their homeland; they may simply go back to Valhai and harvest more,” pointed out Six.
“That is true. Though they would have to have room for it on Dessia.” Diva went white. “We will not allow that.” She stretched her neck, making her look a bit like one of the tall trees. Six looked sideways at his wife with pride. The beach had faded; she had already transformed back into the fierce warrior that was always close to the surface.
“They don’t know what they are up against,” he said, with a pleased nod.
“If they get control of the ortholiquid network, too,” said the visitor, “they can control all of us as well.” He spun on his axis and turned a horrid grey colour. “They will take me over again; I know they will!”
“No, they won’t!” said Six. “You know that the canths can protect us all, Visitor; they did on Pictoria. We will manage to sort something out.”
But nothing they could say could quieten the little being. He spun around and around on his axis, making them all dizzy. It wasn’t until Diva threw a spread over him angrily that he was persuaded to stop. Then Six and Diva were finally left alone to make their preparations.
Diva turned to Six. “Do you think we should tell Raven that we are leaving the planet?”
He shook his head. “No. Raven can go back to her old adoptive parents for a couple of weeks; we promised she would visit periodically, remember? We should just leave. The only person who needs to know about this is the man who speaks to canths. We must tell him where we are going, and why we are going there. Come on; we have a lot to do and only a little time to do it in.”
Chapter 8
THE NEW INDEPENDENCE dropped into the system behind the Dessite moon, and the six people who were to form part of the offensive began to scramble into bodywraps, and to prepare themselves for the incursion.
Only Bennel and Tallen had never seen Dessia, so the twins were explaining the floating islands to them, to one side. The others were chatting amongst themselves.
“How is Temar?” Diva asked Grace.
“He is fine. It was hard to leave him with the man who contrives children—” Grace’s voice gave a slight tremor, which she suppressed furiously, “—but, of course, he will be very well taken care of, and they will take the opportunity to carry out all of the standard tests and inoculations which all of the Xianthan children have.”
“He will be fine. It was hard to leave Raven, too. I had … I had got used to having her close by.”
Grace smiled. “She looks just like you, did you know?”
Diva grinned. “It had occurred to me, yes. I am horribly afraid that she has inherited my terrible temper too!”
“No bad thing – She will be brave and fearless and confront life head on. That will sort out the Coriolan meritocracy!”
“Yes. Six and I did our best, but so far we don’t seem to have changed my home planet at all.”
“Well, there you are. Anyway, you have to leave something for the next generation to get on with!”
Diva looked at her strangely. “I’m only 20, remember? Not exactly in my dotage yet!”
Grace gave her friend a hug. “You
are
knocking on a bit, you know!”
“I suppose I am. You know, it’s strange, but I still feel the same person as when I was 14.”
“That’s because you haven’t matured,” said Six helpfully, who had come up behind.
Diva’s brows met, and she shrugged off the arm he had put around her. “Speak for yourself, no-name!” she snapped.
He looked hurt. “I didn’t say I didn’t like you as you are!” he pointed out.
“Bah! Of course I have matured. I am a mother!”
“Hardly full-time. Give it a while,” said Six. “We only get to see most of the children for two weeks a year.”
“I love them all, even if I haven’t been with them for very long, except for Raven, of course.”
“Raven
is
endearing, isn’t she? Very imperious. Strutting around making everyone do just what she wants. So like you.”
“Thank you very much!”
“That’s all right. Knew you would be pleased.” Six looked around to see if the others had finished and clapped Ledin on the back. “Ready? Can’t wait to get down there. Didn’t think we would get a second chance to see inside the Dessite facility, I must say.”
Ledin didn’t seem so enthusiastic. “My memories of Dessia are not exactly pleasant,” he said.
“Oh, that’s right, you fell off the cliff, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t fall; I was blasted off by lightning!”
“Yeah, yeah – whatever.”
Ledin glared after Six as he walked away and then shook his head. After all, whatever the cause, he
had
fallen off the cliff face, and come close to killing himself.
The trimorphs finished explaining the lay-out of the island which the locals knew as the Island of the Forthgoing, and turned to the others.
“We haven’t been able to find out exactly where on the island Arcan is being held, and you know that – unfortunately – we can’t come down with you to help. If we did we would never be able to get out; we would only be giving the Dessites exactly what they want.
“The visitor has been in contact with us. He wants to go back to Enara. He is convinced that the Ammonites have had something to do with this – says the Dessites weren’t strong enough to physically pull Arcan completely out of the binary system before. We are pretty sure that they have come to an agreement with the Dessites, just as we suspected. They must have given information on how to strengthen the intensity of an attack on the orthogel entity, in exchange for a promise that Arcan would be dealt with, and that Enara would have permanent immunity.” Both trimorphs spun. “Well, we morphics don’t think they should be allowed to get away with it. So the visitor thought, while you lot are trying to help Arcan, he would go over there, and see what he can find out.”
Grace nodded. “Great idea! If all this has happened because the Ammonites signed a treaty with the Dessites, then I think we need to know about it. But I still find it hard to believe that, after saving their miserable lives, they would repay us like this!”
Six nodded. “We should have left them where they were: stuck as stopped light in the ortholiquid. Great way to thank us for everything we have done for them!”
The twins shivered. “The visitor will find out as much as he can. We agree with you. If the Ammonites have sold us out to the Dessites, then they don’t deserve the chance to found a new empire. But we morphics are like Arcan; we don’t believe in violence.”
Ledin and Six exchanged glances. “Sometimes the fight comes to you; you can’t simply ignore it,” said Ledin.
Grace knew that he was thinking about his sister, Hanna. She sighed. “We have to do whatever we can to save Arcan and stop these creatures from hurting him. We owe him that and much, much more.”
They looked at each other, very serious. There were nods all around, and the trimorphs pulsed their agreement, too. Everyone had a feeling that things were about to change.
The twins shimmered regretfully. “We would have liked to go with the visitor,” one said, “but we are not immune to the Ammonites, and the visitor has asked us to keep away. He thinks you might need us here, above Dessia, where our ability to block the Dessite minds might come in more useful.”
“Definitely,” said Grace. “We don’t want anybody else to get trapped, whatever happens.”
The trimorphs nodded reluctantly. The others began to get ready for their incursion on the planet. Ledin checked that Grace and Diva were ready, gave Tallen and Bennel a thumbs-up, and then followed Six towards the shuttle bays. They would need both shuttles, with six of them to transport. Because of the difficulty of the approach, they had decided to place one shuttle on each side of the island. There was the same ledge they had already used once, and another ledge on the other side of the island, nearer to the top. Grace, Ledin and Diva were to take that side, while Six, Bennel and Tallen used their original site. They had agreed to meet at the door to the hut which housed the facility, once inside the open compound on top of the island.
LEDIN DROPPED THE first shuttle down onto the landing site in the middle of a torrential downpour, which he hoped would mask their arrival. There was a slight impact as it settled onto the rocky shelf. Grace peered out of the rexelene visor and wrinkled her nose, but Ledin seemed pleased.
“They stand no chance of detecting us in this.”