Traveler_Losing Legong Read online

  Myles looked at Krykowfert in bewilderment.

  "You talked to the Earthman, Traveler, as you call him. Did he tell you of how he got here, how his ship works?"

  Myles shook his head 'no.'

  "He pokes a hole in space, and he just pops through it." Krykowfert watched Myles for signs of understanding, or at least attention. "Just like that."

  The Frame glowed and expanded. Again the sheets of light, again the sparkling and twisting lines and parting lips. Krykowfert laughed out loud. For a moment the vibrating rim stabilized, the lips formed a near perfect circle and slowly spun around.

  "Look Myles, Look through it! You may be seeing the stars of a distant galaxy, millions of light-years away. That probe is there, now. In an instant." The circle wavered, collapsed back into a slit. "You see Myles, I can do it too. I can punch holes in space, just like the Earth-man."

  Myles peered at the image. "What's on the other side?"

  Krykowfert frowned. "I just told you. Space. Other space, parsecs away."

  "No." Myles lifted his arms and made a turning, twisting motion. "Not through it. Here. The other side here."

  Krykowfert stared back, his mouth opened and hung that way for a moment. He drew in a breath and blinked, walked over to one of the Guard's consoles and started rapidly flipping images. Not finding what he was looking for, he dipped into his implant and issued instructions. A moment later Myles saw the Asteroid-Skimmer detach from the Rail-ship and start on a trajectory taking it around the outside of the Frame. Krykowfert composed himself and turned back to Myles.

  "That was a Bell's Probe you saw, Tugot. In a moment it will start sending back telemetry, until then, I can tell you nothing of where it is. I can punch a hole Tugot, but I cannot control where that hole will lead."

  Krykowfert waited for the significance of that fact to sink in. Myles had just assumed that when one made a wormhole, one got to decide where it went.

  "Traveler not only pokes holes at will, they appear exactly where he wishes them too." Krykowfert added.

  Myles cut him off. "What would you do, even if you had that ability? Go back to Earth?" Myles scoffed.

  "I would take the Colony to Eden."

  Myles frowned and took a step back.

  "It is not a legend Tugot, it is a place. The place the colony was intended to go. And I have found it."

  "Now you're going to tell me that Earth diverted us on purpose..."

  Krykowfert snapped back. "I have no fucking idea how the fucking Colony went off fucking course! A goddamn error at Turnaround, a pissy fraction of a degree in trajectory, it doesn't matter. The planet exists, Tugot. It's had well over five hundred years of automated terra-forming and by the data we're able to gather it's stable, temperate and safe."

  Myles was taken aback.

  "I have sent a hundred probes to random destinations. At any time I can Rip those holes open again. But why? None of them go to Eden. I have it Tugot, I've found it. I can open a Rip. I just can't land it at the right place." He paused. Myles opened his mouth to speak but Krykowfert stifled him with a trembling raised finger. "I was on the brink, Myles. Traveler was considering our problem, but now, with the Council- I don't know Tugot, he's basically in prison, they may keep him there indefinitely, they may simply expel him from Legong space. If I just had a tool, a way to navigate the hole." Krykowfert watched Myles closely. It was a lot to take in and there was little time. Krykowfert paused. Myles walked over to the consoles and the images. Krykowfert relaxed a little, lowered his voice, all the time keeping his piercing gaze focused hotly on Myles. "His ship Tugot, his ship and a Bell's Probe. All I would need is an hour. Once I've established a connection to Eden he'll be free, free to go back to Earth. Or stay. Whatever. Whatever he wishes."

  Myles felt excited and exhausted. In twenty-four hours his world had changed beyond recognition. So many of the rules nessecary to life on Legong would have no meaning on a place like Eden.

  Krykowfert continued. "Norte is our best pilot. She's not been able to operate so much as the ship's hatch. If only we could establish a connection... Just one hour Myles, just one hour in that ship and the lives of our people would change forever."

  Myles's heart throbbed, his head spun. Krykowfert stared. Myles spoke. He couldn't help himself.

  "I can fly it. I did it. When we were touring."

  11

  Krykowfert gave up on Myles learning navigation theory and left him to Norte and Peto, studying the operation of a K-ship in the main hanger. Peto forced a training helmet onto Myles's head. He gave it a smack.

  "You got a big head."

  No, it's just that the helmet was made for a child.

  Norte sat back from the control console. "OK. Are you connected now?"

  Norte's lack of patience wasn't helping Myles focus. He tried to relax, closing his eyes and letting his head drop to his chest. The helmet produced a peculiar disembodied feeling, shutting out the typical distractions of sight and sound. A 'normal' child would find this helpful, but Myles's distractions came from inside. The helmet created a mental void, and somewhere within that was the connection to the control panel.

  Perhaps the connection is behind that pig?

  Myles shuddered and the pig disappeared. He took a moment to explore the empty space, but no pig, and no connection.

  "I'M NOT FEELING ANYTHING." The silence in his head made Myles feel the need to yell.

  "You're not supposed to feel it Tugot, you're supposed to connect with it." Norte's thoughts appeared in his head as they normally would, but he couldn't hear his own. She made adjustments to the helmet and tried repeatedly to force a connection between Myles and the control panel. As she grew more frustrated Myles grew more nervous, which only made the situation more difficult. Finally Norte gave up and tried again with celestial navigation. Peto yanked the helmet off, static electricity leaving Myles's hair sticking out in all directions.

  "OK. This is how we're going to do it." Norte opened two images in the air between them. "This is the system of the Eden planet. This is its sun. Now take note of the magnitude and spectrum and look at this star field. See it?"

  Myles had no idea what the magnitude or the spectrum of Eden's sun was.

  She's probably getting that through her implant-

  "It's here! Look! Right here!" Norte punched her finger into the second, wider view of stars. She fell back into her seat. "How's it connect Tugot? How's that damn earth ship connect with you when it won't connect with anyone else?"

  "I don't know! I didn't connect with it, it just read my thoughts on its own, or rather it read my desires, my wishes." Myles flinched as Norte slammed the hovering navigation images through Myles's face.

  Peto laughed. "Ha! You thought it was real!"

  The images were holographic, they had no physical substance. Myles knew that.

  Norte sighed. "If I had more time. There's got to be a way of prying out whatever it is that navigates that thing. We don't need the ship, just the damn navigation tool."

  Myles could see in her face complete disdain. He wasn't her helper, he was just another obstacle between her and what she really wanted. Control. Control of the mission, the goals, Traveler's ship. When they climbed out of the ship Krykowfert was there to meet them. He left Peto and Myles to wander and took Norte aside.

  Myles couldn't quite hear what was being said and Peto didn't care, but it was obvious that Norte wasn't liking it. Krykowfert held her at bay for a moment while he dipped into his implant. At that moment Peto's lids grew heavy and his head lolled about, his chin loosely falling back into his neck, giving his face a weak, puffy look. He snapped back to full consciousness, shook off what was a rather sudden and forced connection and left Myles by himself. The conversation between Krykowfert and Norte continued a moment longer and then Krykowfert looked up at Myles, forced a smile, and exited on the far side of the hangar. Norte clenched her fists, relaxed, and walked past Myles through the same exit Peto had taken. She stopped on the
far side of the door and turned back to him.

  "C'mon. Move it!"

  They arrived in the Earth-ship hangar in time to see Peto finish loading gear into the lower level. Norte tossed an overnight bag up through hatch, grabbing the hatch herself and pulling herself through with a graceful flip. Myles became aware of his own complete lack of baggage.

  He said an hour.

  Myles met Norte in the pilothouse, setting up a short cylindrical post between the seats. Despite the chaos of the aborted training session Myles was able to bring Traveler's ship out of the hangar with little problem. Once clear of Central Command, Norte turned the cylindrical device on and started manipulating projected images while issuing instructions to Myles.

  "This will read the images the ship shows us and overlay my nav data." She said. "See? This green circle indicates Eden's sun. The planet is in the second orbit. Don't try to get us too close on the first shot, just get us near enough that we can cover the remaining distance in a reasonable time."

  Pig hovered in the middle of the main view. "How you plan on doing that?"

  "I don't have to do it, I just have to want it." Myles said aloud, and much to his own surprise, he did 'want.' Desperately. He felt Norte staring at him. She seemed unaware of the pig hovering before them

  She can't see it..

  "Of course not," said Pig.

  "Look!" For a moment Norte's facade of serious professionalism faded and Myles was sitting next to an excited child. "There, in the middle."

  Now completely without pig, Myles could see that space wasn't really black, there was always a background glow. Stars filled every square centimeter of the view, never actually giving up the sky to total blackness. Except at the end of Norte's finger. There, in the direct center of the image surrounding them, a black dot slowly grew into a tiny black disk.

  "How did you see that?" Myles asked.

  As the black disk grew Myles began to make out stars within it, but they were different somehow. The expanding disk eroded familiar constellations, replacing them with new patterns of lights. In an instant the strange star field took up their entire forward field of view. Norte twisted around. The disk of strange stars expanding before them gave way to a circle of familiar ones contracting behind. Peto's disembodied head floated in the chaos.

  "Move!" Norte shouted.

  Peto ducked out of the pilothouse. The tiny disk of familiar stars snapped into nothing.

  The whole process took less than four seconds. Norte turned to front; Peto slipped his head back into the pilothouse behind her. The view ahead spun and shifted, filling with a blue-green planet. Mountain peaks poked through white clouds. Norte spoke in a whisper, never taking her eyes off the view.

  "That's it. That's Eden."

  All three stared, transfixed. The planet rotated, and the stars around it moved too quickly. The ship was orbiting, moving itself closer to the atmosphere with each turn.

  "Tell the ship to confirm atmospheric makeup, and look for fauna," Norte said, "I'm most concerned with large or potentially dangerous creatures. Higher-order things. Have it show us in here."

  Filled with fascination, Myles had no trouble complying with Norte's string of orders. He wanted to see what lay below as much as she. Images snapped on and off, it was difficult to tell what was remote, what was a direct view. They found no land creatures greater than twenty kilos, an array of smaller animals, crawling insects, large varieties of sea life, grasses, bushes, trees. Eden's terra-forming mission had launched before the Colony departed Earth. The machines had had more than five hundred years and had done their job.

  The ship responded so quickly to the search requests that Myles began to wonder if it wasn't reading Norte's wishes instead of his own. After an hour of surveys the ship set itself down on a grassy plain, a kilometer or so north of an escarpment running east-west.

  Peto and Norte wasted no time dropping out the hatch. From the pilothouse Myles watched them set up a perimeter of antennas about a half kilometer from the ship. Once they'd established that, they moved in closer. Dragging a Maker mounted on a Skimming-cart, Norte and Peto cut a ditch around the ship. The first few centimeters of the scarred ground was dark and dense, the deeper layers a loose, sandy yellow. Colorfully scintillating bismuth crystals collected alongside the ditch, rising into a meter-high wall, black, shiny and cold.

  Look at them. The first Legongs to set foot on a new world.

  Myles clambered out of the pilothouse and dropped through the hatch onto the, until very recently, inviolate soil of a foreign planet. Hours ago it had been a place of myth, argued about in bars and classrooms. Now it was real, and he had brought Legong to it. Even Krykowfert couldn't do that. Not without Myles Tugot.

  "What are you doing out here?" Norte snapped.

  Peto was already beyond the low wall, dragging an empty Skimmer cart toward the outer ring of antennas. On his body were strapped a variety of weapons.

  "Where's he going?" Myles asked.

  "Collecting samples." Norte busied herself assembling the probe.

  Myles looked up at the escarpment a kilometer or so in the other direction. "I think I'll go for a walk. Should be a good view from up there."

  Norte stopped assembling and stood. She shaded her eyes and peered up at the escarpment, then at Myles. Scanning the savanna she located Peto and blinked, focusing an intense gaze in his direction. Half a kilometer away, Peto stopped, turned, looked back at them. Myles watched both, each tensely engaged in an implant converstaion. Peto grew agitated and started flapping his arms and shaking his head, pointing to a copse of trees in the broad open space beyond the antennas. Norte remained still and focused. Peto let his arms drop, stooped his shoulders and looked as if he were about to drop to the ground and have a tantrum. Instead he perked up, looked to one side then another before locating the dense foliage Norte was suggesting to him. Spilling from a ravine cut into the escarpment, a knot of trees, bushed and thick grasses followed a little stream a few meters out from teh ravine. His arms went up in surrender and he and Norte broke contact.

  "Follow Peto. Don't leave his sight. NO FUNNY BUSINESS! If anything happens to you Peto and I are stuck here until I get this probe in orbit."

  Myles had just wanted to look around, now he had second thoughts.

  "You look like a fish." Norte said. "Go! Or don't. I have work to do."

  Myles intentionally walked slowly, pacing it so that Peto would arrive at the ravine before him. About halfway there he heard Norte yelling for him. He turned to see the ship hovering silently, two meters off the ground immediately behind him.

  What! No I'm fine. Go. Go back to the camp.

  Myles failed to convince the ship to return. He shifted his efforts to look within himself.

  Yes. I'm afraid. Norte spooked me a little. But Peto is nearby, they each have a vested interest in my well-being. I'm OK. Everyone's OK.

  He tried to relax and think about all the interesting sights he might see from the top of the escarpment, of Peto, his 'protector.' He tried walking away. The ship stayed put for a moment, then slowly drifted back to the camp.

  From the top of the escarpment Myles looked out on two broad plains. The high; flat and windswept, dotted here and there with a solitary struggling tree. A stream wandered across, slowly cutting a ravine deeper and deeper until, reaching the edge of the escarpment, it tumbled down the last few meters to the lower plain. Here everything was greener. Thick, rich growth clotting the ravine itself and many small gatherings of robust and varied trees ringing rocky outcrops. At the outlet of the ravine the little stream turned west, along the escarpment, turning away before reaching camp to follow the line of antennas, tracing a great arc back to the escarpment. This left Norte and the ship on an island of sorts, a slight rise pushed up against the cliff. On the far horizon the grassland gave way to lightly forested hills, then tall, snow-capped mountains. Myles used his implant to call up images of Legong, trying to match what he saw with memories of familiar landsca
pes. He could find similar geography, but not with the rich and varied flora.

  Where's Peto?

  Myles scanned up and down the escarpment. He looked for movement in the distant glades of trees. Nothing.

  Better head back.

  He climbed back down into the ravine. He paused, noticing movement in the dense undergrowth. Myles got down on his hands and knees and crawled around a rocky outcrop, lowering himself out of sight of whatever had moved.

  It could be dangerous.

  Yes, but the ship found nothing larger than twenty kilos. Pig hid behind Myles, hooves on shoulders, peering around the side of Myles's head.

  That's pretty big for an animal with teeth and claws...

  Myles saw it. Half the size of the twenty-kilo bringer of death he'd imagined, heavy hips and thighs narrowing to a small chest and shoulders with short, delicate arms. Broad paws with black, heavy claws reached up and pulled a branch down to its mouth. Myles sat back on his heels and shifted his legs, loosing a stone that thudded onto the soft dirt beneath him. The creature's face turned, its eyes followed the stone's path backward, up the slope to Myles's foot, then up his leg to Myles's eyes. It continued to chew. The creature pulled down another branch and shook it.

  What's it want? whispered Pig.

  It tore off a handful of leaves, held them out and chittered at him, then shook the branch again. A loud bang and a concussive force knocked Myles back. The creature flew towards him, smashing face-first into the rocks beside him, part thud, part crunch. Myles leapt to his feet.

  "Shit! Shitshitshit. Shit! shit! shit!"

  Myles's heart raced, he bounced-paced back and forth beside the rock, breathing heavily.

  "You're supposed to be up the escarpment." Peto grunted as he scrambled up through the underbrush. "You want to end up in my sample bag? Idiot." Myles didn't answer, still catching his breath. Peto picked up the carcass and stuffed it into a bag. "I'm all full. Let's head back." He turned and disappeared back into the brush, leaving Myles heaving against his rock. He shuddered as he picked what could have been a tooth or a piece of fleshy bone from the shoulder of his jacket.