Moonfin (27 page)

“Ohhhh, they
do
exist. I knew it!” she said breathlessly, boldly scooting up to the edge of the gas-filled vent. She had always known about the wondrous creatures that lived in the cryo-geysers since she was a little girl. “See there,” she whispered and pointed into the opening. “They're the bright orange slivers you see deep down.”

Kai slid up next to her and peered into the bubbling geyser, catching sight of a swarm of shimmery crystal-like fish darting along the bottom.

Jeff was getting fidgety as the time ticked away. He wanted to know one thing: how they were going to get off that rock and back home? He inched a bit closer to the two giants, as much as he dared, and said, “We were wondering if you could tell us where the constellations are? You know, the Brane to travel through,” he croaked, wondering if these giants liked to eat more than just strange fish.

Bernie and Joe both dipped their heads and narrowed their brutish giant-eyes at him. Jeff shivered.

“Out here the outgoing Brane is through the central port. You came all the way out here without knowing that?” said Joe, pulling up on his fishing pole. “That's hiiiilarious!” He laughed convulsively, catching himself mid-guffaw.

“Joe!” snapped Bernie. “That's the third time in an hour ya've scared away the Muddies with all yer noisy raucous. We're gonna get kicked off of this moon if yer not careful!”

“Sorry, so sorry,” he said quickly and bent his head low, chin touching his feet.

Kai added quickly, “We were in a rush to get here.”

“I guess so, if ya don't even know how to get back through the Brane,” Bernie said with a snigger.

“So where is this central port? We're sort of pressed for time.”

“You are, are you?” grimaced Bernie darkly. Joe stuck an elbow in his side and gave him a
you-don't-want-to-end-up-in-that-Catastraptos-place
look.

“Uh—yeah—over there,” Bernie grumbled. He pointed toward the geyser-swimming pool area. “Your code brings up the Waystation and ya jump right in. Lots of fun, that one. One minute you think yer going to burn clean through to the bone, and the next ya've arrived at yer port-o-call.”

He turned to help Joe pull out a fat fish. It had long whiskers and a forked tail, similar to a catfish on earth, but with a flat face, smooth as a dinner plate, and glassy, like one of those plastic toys you see at the arcade.

“Well, looky here! We're gonna eat like kings tonight!” Joe ground his huge lips together. “Only, we'll have to travel off this frozen rock to cook it; maybe head to Venus for a cookout.”

While Jeff and Kai worked out the details of the Brane port, Lizzy stepped over to the ice walls to look more closely at the frozen city underneath. She couldn't resist the urge to run her hand over the pillars and stone doors not far from the surface. It was like that city carved out of rock she read about once. A place called Petra, but encased in ice.

But, oh
! Is that a person caught in the ice too?

She used her sleeve to wipe the powder from the ice wall where a man, a giant like the others, was staring outward, wide-eyed and grimacing. His head appeared scarred, scorched hairless, with corkscrew horns for ears and a beak-like nose. His robes were red, and he was holding a long wooden staff, which was thin in the middle and thick at each end. Lizzy pressed her face to the ice and looked upward. As she strained to make out his features, his eyes suddenly ignited into two fireballs trapped in a frozen, pallid head. She stumbled backward to the ground.

“Liz! Are you okay?” cried Kai, rushing over to help her up.

“Um, yes, just startled.” She got back to her feet shakily. “D-do you see that man in the ice there?”

“The ugly, bald guy? Yeah, must be another one of these giants. I see the buildings too. I didn't see them at first, but I can see them clearly now—they're all over the place.”

“I wonder what it is … or was,” she said, bewildered.

They had only five minutes left on their timer, and the CON-ch was alerting them with messages in bright yellow across their eyes, like a television ticker tape only they could see.

“It's time to go,” said Jeff. “I'm seeing the warning signal.”

But Lizzy couldn't leave without asking the two fishermen about the city. “Excuse me, sirs,” she said, leaning in, “we have to leave soon, and I was wondering …” They both kept their heads down and ignored her completely, waving hands her way as if she were an annoying mosquito to swat away. Lizzy pressed closer. “Can you tell me what all these buildings are for?” she persisted, not budging an inch.

Bernie finally looked up and followed her pointing finger toward the ice walls, an expression of surprise on his enormous face. “I'll be. They've been here s'long, I hardly ever notice them anymore.” Scowling, he turned his back to her again and continued to work on his fish gutting, which smelled so bad it made their eyes water.

“But
who
built them?”

“It's time for you to go now, missy,” said Joe menacingly, glancing at Bernie. He leaned over and muttered something in his ear, and Lizzy caught the words, “not from around here.” Bernie refused to turn around, and Joe's eyes turned steely-cold. For a moment Lizzy thought she saw something flash across his skin—a symbol vividly appeared, then vanished.

“Everyone knows about the old stories and how the Sightseers came to be,” clacked Joe angrily. “This is the old city of the Ferryman, and that's all I'm going to say about it, so you three shoo off!”

Then Joe did a peculiar thing, and their faces went white as he did so. Snapping off his giant-sized thumbnail, as one would pull the tab from a soda can, he flicked it directly into a small dormant geyser next to the three stunned children. A sharp
pop
! went off, and a swarm of spindly beetles rushed out the top and down the side toward their feet!

This sent Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai scampering across the ice and over to the Brane port. The warning message flashed across their eyes again, turning from yellow to blaring red. Standing before the geyser as methane and nitrogen vapor steadily spewed out, planet Earth glistened in the midst of the gases. And although their trip to Charon was short, they were glad to see its lovely blue form floating before them. Lizzy cast one last look back. It was very unlikely she would ever visit Pluto's moon again, and so she etched the scenery into her memory.

One by one they jumped into the light. Time and space folded them back to the stellar rotunda they had left only thirty minutes before. They stepped into the Constelluliary blinking, gaping, and laughing together.

At this moment Jeff did something that would have caused a fuss had Lizzy and Kai seen it, but it was done very slight-of-hand all because Jeff wanted a souvenir from his adventure in Frog Mountain. He reached up and quickly pulled his CON-ch clip off his ear and gutted it, slipping the circuitry in his pocket and re-clipping the casing back onto his ear. What he planned to do with his burglary he wasn't sure, but thought it worth a good study in any case.

Then a stunned look came over him …

“That was amazing—just like in my comic books!” he said, face ruddy from the sudden change in temperature. He grabbed his head in a mind-blowing revelation. “I'm telling you, comic books are for
real …
the
true history
of mankind. The Brane proves it.”

Kai and Lizzy laughed some more, until they realized he was serious.

“But did you see how that giant pulled his nail from his thumb—”

“
Ahem
.”

They found themselves under the fluttery gaze and flaring nostrils of Mr. Pavlini, who was nimbly turning knobs and flipping switches along the polyoscillationdulceter box, his ping-pong eye bouncing wildly.

“And how was your trip?” He brusquely unclipped the CON-chs from their ears. “We have the Crinkle Club if you're interested. You get bonus points after visiting all the hot spots in the Milky Way.” He explained in detail the fine points of this travel plan … blackout dates … vouchers and restrictions … and finally finished with, “And that leaves a total of thirty-two additional hours of ring-boarding around Saturn. Sounds fabulous, huh?”

Kai thought so!

All three of Mr. Pavlini's eyes froze eerily in place as he waited for their answer.

“M-m-maybe some other time. We have important matters at the Waystation before traveling on,” Jeff said in his best business manner. He could smell a pitch a mile away and knew how to deal with pushy salesmen.

Pavlini puffed and twitched all over.

“If you change your mind, you know where my office is. For you, I will extend a special limited time offer: two destinations for the price of one—if you get back to me within one week.”

Lizzy eyed the flashing green box he had been cradling in the palm of his hand. “Mr. Pavlini, one more thing, please. Do we need one of those poly-box-things you're holding for the free gates?”

“No, no,” he said, snapping his fingers crossly, “for short distances it's not necessary. Just don't hiccup or sneeze or anything sudden like that—might get stuck in the wall.”

“You could have mentioned that before!” exclaimed Jeff.

“It's only the free gates we seem to have a problem with!” He tramped off in a grumbling way, very disappointed he hadn't made a sale.

They were left in the middle of the Constelluliary, wondering which door would take them to the rooms below. Many planets, star clusters, gas nebulas, and black holes swept by them, along with throngs of busy travelers.

Jeff checked out the flashing schedule above their heads.

“If only we could read that sign, it would tell us the free gates,” he mumbled, rubbing his forehead. His foreign language tutors had given up on him when all he ever wanted to learn how to say was: “cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake” in every country he visited. He could proudly order fast food in eleven languages.

Lizzy zeroed in on the wall of stars, which was much easier to decipher than the Brane directory.

“The only symbol I see that makes any sense is the constellation Cetus. See there?” She followed a funny shape with a roundish head and a kite-shaped tail along the wall. “In olden times Cetus meant ‘sea monster.'”

“Yeah, but if we pick the wrong one, what happens?” wondered Kai.

“Nothing. You heard—we can't pass through without proper
access codes
and
harmonized molecules
,” Jeff said, mimicking Mr. Pavlini's smarmy voice.

They kept close to the Cetus cluster as it swirled across the wall. Lizzy reached up and pushed her hand into the tail part, which slid easily through. When it moved low enough, they stepped into the Brane (holding their breaths and pinching their noses) and disappeared from the round room—as if slipping into an invisibility box. The people and noise spun away like party streamers from a popper, and for a fraction of a second it felt like their bodies were being “stretched” to the size of the universe itself. They instantly snapped back into a very dark room, similar to the rotunda of the Constelluliary, except totally empty, but for the maze of hallways and closed doors lining the circular room. The choices overwhelmed them at once.

“These could go a million different places,” Lizzy exhaled in frustration. “We'll have to check every door!”

“No we won't. That one has a blue glow coming from it, and I can hear noises coming from inside,” said Jeff, directing a small penlight beam at a door a short distance away.

They quietly tiptoed over to the door, which stood open a sliver, and squatted behind it, listening hard. Even before she came near to the opening, Lizzy could feel the suffering pain, but this time it wasn't in her head. It was centered in her heart.

She squeezed her face into the open crack and saw the backs of two men at the far side of the room, leaning over a table and speaking in muffled tones. Something barely alive lay in front of them. One of the men turned around, and she could see his silhouette clearly.

At that moment, the pain from her heart plunked into her stomach like a heavy stone, and as it did, she let out a frightened, “
Eeeep
!”

Chapter 18
WHERE THE STAR KEYS LEAD

L
ee poked the sleeping specimen with the sharp end of a scalpel and glanced nervously at the clock. He wondered how much longer they'd be working on this blob of sea pulp.

“Tell me, Dr. Krell … how long can a person survive the Dreaming Pits?” His nasally, high-pitched voice quivered a smidge more than normal.
It's probably too late to even bother
.

“The longest was four days. After that, the victim begins to waste away from thirst. The dreams keep them happy for a time,” answered Dr. Krell, looking over his micro-lens glasses. “Hand me that syringe, please … then the pit will absorb them like a very hungry stomach, something akin to a Venus flytrap.”