us to this underwater sanctuary. Ur-ronn trotted behind Pincer, her long neck folded low to the ground, a pose of simmering dejection.
I hobbled on crutches behind Huck, staying out of reach of her pusher leg, which flailed and banged against corridor walls on either side.
“You promised to explain everything!” she cried out.
“You said we’d get to ask questions of the Library!”
Neither the phuvnthus nor the amphibians answered, but I recalled what the spinning voice had said before sending us away.
“We cannot justify any longer keeping four children under conditions that put you all in danger. This location may be bombed again, with greater fury. Also, you now know much too much for your own good.”
“What do we know?” Pincer had asked, in perplexity.
“That noors can talk-alk-alk?”
The hologram assented with a twisting nod. “And other things. We can’t keep you here, or send you home as we originally intended, since that might prove disastrous for ourselves and your families. Hence our decision to convey you to another place. A goal mentioned in your diaries, where you may be content for the necessary time.”
“Wait!” Huck had insisted. “I’ll bet you’re not even in charge. You’re prob’ly just a computer … a thing. I want to talk to someone else! Let us see your boss!”
I swear, the whirling pattern seemed both surprised and amused.
“Such astute young people. We had to revise many assumptions since meeting the four of you. As I am programmed to find incongruity pleasant, let me thank you for the experience, and sincerely wish you well.”
I noticed, the voice never answered Huck’s question.
Typical grown-up, I thought. Whether hoonish parents or alien contraptions … they’re all basically the same.
• • •
Huck settled down once we left the curved hallway and reentered the maze of reclaimed passages leading to the whale ship. The phuvnthus let her down, and she rolled along with the rest of us. My friend continued grumbling remarks about the phuvnthus’ physiology, habits, and ancestry, but I saw through her pose. Huck had that smug set to her eyestalks.
Clearly, she felt she had accomplished something sneaky and smart.
Once aboard the whale ship, we were given another room with a porthole. Apparently the phuvnthus weren’t worried about us memorizing landmarks. That worried me, at first.
Are they going to stash us in another salvaged wreck, under a different dross pile, in some far-off canyon of the Midden? In that case, who’ll come get us if they are destroyed?
The voice mentioned sending us to a “safe” place. Call me odd, but I hadn’t felt safe since stepping off dry land at Terminus Rock. What did the voice mean about it being a site where we already “wanted to go’?
The whale ship slid slowly at first through its tunnel exit, clearly a makeshift passage constructed out of the hulls of ancient starcraft, braced with rods and improvised girders. Ur-ronn said this fit what we already knew — the phuvnthus were recent arrivals on Jijo, possibly refugees, like our ancestors, but with one big difference.
They hope to leave again.
I envied them. Not for the obvious danger they felt, pursued by deadly foes, but for that one option they had, that we did not. To go. To fly off to the stars, even if the way led to certain doom. Was I naive to think freedom made it all worthwhile? To know I’d trade places with them, if I could?
Maybe that thought laid the seeds for my later realization. The moment when everything suddenly made sense. But hold that thought.
Before the whale ship emerged from the tunnel, we caught sight of figures moving in the darkness, where long shadows stretched away from moving points of sharp, starlike light. The patchiness of brilliance and pure darkness made it hard, at first, to make out very much. Then Pincer identified the shadowy shapes.
They were phuvnthus, the big six-legged creatures whose stomping gait seemed so ungainly indoors. Now, for the first time, we saw them in their element, swimming, with the mechanical legs tucked away or used as flexible work arms. The broad flaring at the back ends of their bodies now made sense — it was a great big flipper that propelled them gracefully through dark waters.
We had already speculated that they might not be purely mechanical beings. Ur-ronn thought the heavy metal carapace was worn like a suit of clothes, and the real creatures lay inside horizontal shells.
They wear them indoors because their true bodies lack legs, I thought, knowing also that the steel husks protected their identities. But why, if they were born swimmers, did they continue wearing the coverings outside?
We glimpsed light bursts of hurtful brilliance — underwater welding and cutting. Repairs, I thought. Were they in a battle, before fleeing to Jijo? My mind filled with images from those vivid space-opera books Mister Heinz used to disapprove of, preferring that we kids broaden our tastes with Keats and Basho. I yearned to get close and see the combat scars … but then the sub entered a narrow shaft, cutting off all sight of the phuvnthu vessel.
Soon, we emerged into the blackness of the Midden. A deep chill seemed to penetrate the glass disk, and we backed away … especially since the spotlights all turned off, leaving the outside world vacant, but for an occasional blue glimmer as some sea creature tried to lure a mate.
I lay down on the metal deck to rest my back, feeling the thrum of engines vibrate beneath me. It was like the rumbling song of some godlike hoon who never needed to pause or take a breath. I filled my air sac and began to umble counterpoint. Hoons think best when there is a steady background cadence — a tone to serve as a fulcrum for deliberation.
I had a lot to think about.
My friends eventually grew bored with staring at the bleak desolation outside. Soon they were all gathered around little Huphu, our noorish mascot, trying to get her to speak. Pincer urged me to come over and use bosun umbles to put her in a cooperative mood, but I declined. I’ve known Huphu since she was a pup, and there’s no way she’s been playing dumb all that time. Anyway, I had seen a difference in that strange noor on the beach, the one that spoke back to the spinning voice in fluent GalSix. Huphu never had that glint in her eyes…
… though as I reflected, I felt sure I’d seen the look before — in just a few noor who lounged on the piers in Wuphon, or worked the sails of visiting ships. Strange ones, a bit more aloof than normal. As silent as their brethren, they nevertheless seemed more watchful somehow. More evaluating. More amused by all the busy activity of the Six Races.
I never gave them much thought before, since a devilish attitude seems innate to all noor. But now perhaps I knew what made them different.
Though noor are often associated with hoons, they didn’t come to Jijo with us, the way chimps, lorniks, and zookirs came with human, qheuen, and g’Kek sooners. They were already here when we arrived and began building our first proud rafts. We always assumed they were native beasts, either natural or else some adjusted species, left behind by the Buyur as a practical joke on whoever might follow. Though we get useful work out of them, we hoon don’t fool ourselves that they are ours.
Eventually, Huck gave up the effort, leaving Pincer and Ur-ronn to continue coaxing our bored mascot. My g’Kek buddy rolled over beside me, resting quietly for a time. But she didn’t fool me for a kidura.
“So tell me,” I asked. “What’d you swipe?”
“What makes you think I took anything?” She feigned innocence.
“Hr-rrm. How ’bout the fakey way you thrashed around, back there in the hall — a tantrum like you used to throw when you were a leg skeeter, till our folks caught on. After we left the curvy hallway, you stopped all that, wearing a look as if you’d snatched the crown jewels under old Richelieu’s nose.”
Huck winced, a reflex coiling of eyestalks. Then she chuckled. “Well, you got me there, d’Artagnan. Come on. Have a look at what I got.”
With some effort, I raised up on my middle stretch of forearm while Huck rolled closer still. Excitement hummed along her spokes.
“Used my pusher legs. Kept banging ’em against the wall till I managed to snag one of these.”
Her tendril-like arm unfolded. There, held delicately between the tips, hung a narrow, rectangular strip of what looked like thick paper. I reached for it.
