6
Two hours later, it was our turn to go through the Fountain. I’m not sure what I had expected, but the sensation was unbelievable.
First we passed through what looked like some sort of electro-charged plasma cloud—with bolts of energy spidering around the hull of the Freya. The interior lights blinked out for a second, as did the artificial gravity. I felt myself strain gently against the seat’s acceleration straps and then, suddenly, my entire world collapsed in on itself.
It was a million times more trippy than the most intense substance Lirala ever got into. Lights, objects, everything around me stretched out until the bridge was a mass of colored strings. The strings blurred and pulsed—and then it was like I was looking into a gigantic bubble swelling outwards.
The ship shuddered and just like that, things were back to normal. Except there was a big green planet in front of us. Yueld. Home world of the legendary Sky Reavers. And, hopefully, the location of the Kryrk.
No one said anything for a few moments. Everyone must have felt as disoriented as me. But Ana-Zhi seemed to recover quickly. She started the ship’s diagnostics and told Galish to steer us away from the other craft emerging from the Fountain.
Then Ana-Zhi took me aside. “You know I’m not keen on this charade. Not keen at all. We don’t have much time to begin with and dicking around like this for the benefit of some Shimese stoolie doesn’t strike me as a particularly efficient use of that time.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a Beck Salvage employee—same as me—”
“I get your point, junior. But I beg to differ about the ‘same as me’ part.”
I took a step closer to her and tried to appear menacing. “We’re both under orders,” I said. “This is the way it’s going to be.”
She put a hand on each of my shoulders. Maybe she meant it to be a friendly gesture, or maybe she was getting ready to knee me in the groin. “What I’m saying is, you and I need to work together. For appearances’ sake. Obviously I run this show. But it can’t look that way to the stoolie. Therefore, our brains need to be on the same wavelength.” She moved her head towards mine until our foreheads were touching. It was extremely uncomfortable. “Get it?”
I stepped back. “Yeah, sure. That’s what I was going to say. We need to work together.”
“Good boy.” She patted my cheek. “Now why don’t we have a little briefing with the stoolie.”
“Chiraine,” I said. “Her name’s Chiraine. Use it.”
Ana-Zhi started to retort, but the Freya jolted suddenly and began to rumble and shake as we hit the atmosphere.
“Galish, make sure no one’s sniffing up our butt.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And run us along the equator. But not too low.” She turned to me. “If that’s okay with you, Captain.”
I didn’t say anything. Just turned on my heel and led the way to the engineering bay.
Chiraine was there, hunched over a datapad. “I can’t believe this junk pile’s ancient geo-pos system actually works, but I’m getting data.”
“Like I said, she’s old but she works.” Ana-Zhi crossed her arms.
“What do you have for us, Chiraine?” I asked.
She called up an animated map on her screen. “We need to get to Roan Andessa. Here.”
“No can do,” Yates said. He had been lurking in the doorway.
“That’s where the node we have to tap is located,” Chiraine said.
“Well, then, that’s going to be a problem.”
I wanted to ask why, but I thought it might look bad if the captain was the guy asking the dumb questions.
Luckily, Chiraine pressed him and Yates explained that the city of Roan Andessa had been colonized by the Obaswoon. And the Rhya didn’t want more advanced civilizations having contact with the Obaswoon. During previous missions, the Beck Salvage team had seen Rhya wardships and security drones patrolling the city’s ground perimeter and airspace. The area was completely restricted.
“It’s impossible to fly in or even go by ground,” Yates said.
“I never said anything about flying in—or driving in.” Chiraine accessed a new screen on her datapad. “We come in from below the city.”
“I didn’t see any tunnel boring equipment on the manifest, did you, Galish?” Ana-Zhi said.
“There’s a natural tunnel,” Chiraine said. “According to this.” She mirrored her datapad to the engineering bay’s wall display, and an image filled the screen. It looked like an old, hand-drawn map.
“What are we looking at?” I asked.
“A seventh-century survey map showing the mesa where the city of Roan Andessa was to be built. At the time of this map it wasn’t much more than a fortress.”
“How did you even get that information onboard?” Ana-Zhi asked. “It’s not something the Rhya would allow.”
Chiraine shrugged. “I smuggled it on board. In one of these.” She reached over to a compact interface box with a small glass orb set in a depression along one side.
I had never seen any piece of gear like that. It looked hand-made. “What is that thing?”
“Biklode resonator,” Chiraine said as if it were obvious.
“Yeah, that doesn’t help.”
She removed the glassy orb from the resonator and held it up. It was the size of my fingertip and the inside of the orb swirled like a cloudy sky.
“This is a biklode. A high-density data storage unit. Uses crystalline maps. Highly shielded and very secure. I have all my research on it.”
“Clever,” Ana-Zhi said.
“Yeah, well. No one wants to disappoint the Shima. This is a pretty high stakes venture.”
“Tell me more about the map.” I stepped closer to get a better look.
Chiraine enlarged the image and highlighted an area on the map. “This is labelled ‘the Well of Forever’ in the Yueldian language. It’s an actual well or pit and it was a deeply-significant religious site. According to my research, the early Yueldians used to throw criminals and heretics into this well.”
“I’m not following,” I
