Awakening on Orbis (2 page)

“Theylor!”

“I’m trying,” he grunted.

The crowd now engulfed me. I could no longer see the sky and had lost sight of Theylor in a sea of wanting hands.

“I have nothing to give you!” I shouted. “I can’t help you.”

Then someone struck me. It was a quick blow to my forehead, but still painful.

“Death to the Tonat!” the alien screamed, but the crowd turned on the assailant. At least a dozen worshippers descended on my attacker and delivered blows much worse than the one he had given me.

“Stop!” I screamed at them, but the crowd swallowed the brawling aliens. Then I saw the flash of a Zinovian Claw, a nasty little weapon that was often equipped with a poison cartridge. “Look out!” I screamed, pointing at the weapon. The effect was instant. The same punishment dealt to the first detractor was unleashed on the claw-toting alien. Fights were now breaking out between different groups, and my body flowed helplessly with the energy of the crowd.

“Theylor! Help me!”

Suddenly the crowd blew apart. Bodies wrenched away from me like metal shavings pulled helplessly toward a huge magnet. Theylor stood in the opening, flanked by two Space Jumpers, who immediately descended upon me. Theylor moved calmly, but I can’t say the same for the mass of worshippers.

“Do you wish for war, Keeper?” a shocked Citizen shouted.

“We will crush you!” another added as the effect of seeing the heavily armed mercenaries rippled through the crowd.

“This is a taste of your life now, whether you accept your fate or not,” Theylor whispered to me. “Just imagine what this is going to be like for Ketheria. She is going to need you.”

“I won’t do it, Theylor. This is not our battle. I don’t know how any of this happened. I’m just a kid from Earth.”

One of the Space Jumpers grunted.

“But she is your
sister,
” Theylor pleaded.

“And I will protect her, but it has to be in my own way.”

Theylor breathed deeply. I knew he didn’t like my answer. “You are naive. Your actions risk your life, they risk your sister’s life, and they might even risk every life in this universe. We will talk of this again,” he said, motioning to the Space Jumpers at my side. And then I was gone.

A moment later, I was standing in a field, rubbing the smell of sweat-soaked socks out of my nose. The Space Jumper to my left had released me. I looked up and saw the city of Nacreo gleaming in the distance.

“Hello, Johnny Turnbull. Or do you prefer JT?” a voice called out.

I turned; a tall, strong-looking humanoid was standing next to one of the Keepers’ fliers. He was wearing a heavy-looking overcoat flung back to expose his tall black boots. When I noticed the small stalactites of flesh that hung from his jawline, I suddenly realized that I had seen this alien before. At Odran’s! The dinner party! This alien was a Trading Council member.

“You’re the — the —” I stammered.

“Hach. I believe we’ve met once before. I am your new Guarantor.”

My first Guarantor was a weaselley little rat named Weegin. The Keepers replaced him with Odran, a vile creature whose scruples were worse than his appearance (and trust me, his appearance was disgusting). My third Guarantor was my friend, a human named Charlie Norton. A cycle never passed when I did not think about him. But Hach was nothing like my previous Guarantors, even Charlie. I’d never forget the way he had confronted his fellow Trading Council member for insulting us at Odran’s party. Hach stood confidently, with his hands cupped, waiting patiently for my reply.

“Hello. Yeah — JT. That’s what my friends call me,” I told him.

“I look forward to being your friend, then, JT. If you’ll follow me, the Keepers have arranged transportation to the spaceport.” Hach motioned toward the flier. It was nothing more than a wheel with a cockpit near the center. “Normally I have a driver, but I couldn’t resist flying one of these things.”

The Space Jumper to my right pushed me toward my new Guarantor. The unexpected force tripped me up, and I fell to my knees. Hach spun around and unleashed a small staff from beneath his cloak. I had the keen sense to duck as he thrust his right arm in front of him, unfolding the device like a double-sided whip. In one complete motion, Hach caught the Space Jumper around the ankles and pulled. The Space Jumper toppled to the ground.

“What’s it like from down there?” Hach hissed at the fallen Space Jumper.

“Wow,” I mumbled. I had never seen anyone take out a Space Jumper before. I didn’t think it was even possible.

“Come, JT,” Hach ordered, and turned toward the flier. Both Space Jumpers glared at me as I walked past. The air around them seemed to ripple as the light folded in on them, and then they were gone, jumping back to wherever they had come from.

I had seen one of the Keepers’ fliers on Orbis 3. It was basically a large wheel piloted from a cockpit positioned off center and lower to the ground. This cockpit remained in its position as the wheel spun around. Hach took his seat at the controls while I climbed in and sat up behind him. I snuggled in, and the seat conformed to my body.

Hach uplinked to the control panel using the neural port embedded behind his left ear, and the cockpit closed in around us. The clouded glass slowly became transparent. I was seated slightly higher than Hach, so I had an unobstructed view of what was in front of me. The craft rolled forward and then lifted into the air, picking up speed as the huge wheel spun faster and faster. Soon it was spinning so fast that I could barely see it except for the slight distortion it made in my vision.

“Comfortable?” Hach asked, his voice soft in my ears, amplified through the smart material behind my head.

“Um, yes,” I said. “Thank you.” I was not used to having a Guarantor care about my well-being. (Except for Charlie, of course, but that was different.) Most of the Citizens on the Rings of Orbis treated knudniks with the same respect they gave the dirt between their toes, if they had toes. I wasn’t going to let Hach’s seemingly open manners go to waste.

“Hach, may I ask you something?” I said.

“You may.”

“How did you become our Guarantor?”

There was a pause before Hach answered. History had taught me that this sort of pause was usually followed by a lie.

“You were given to me.”

“By whom?”

“Your last Guarantor.”

“Charlie?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know what to say. When could Charlie have entrusted us to anyone? The attack had left him unconscious and he’d never come out of it. During our first rotation back on Orbis 1, Madame Lee had murdered Max’s first Guarantor, Boohral, and since he had not willed his knudniks to anyone in time, the Keepers redistributed Max and the others (much to the anger of Boohral’s brood). I could only assume the same would have happened after Charlie died.

“When?” I said. “How?”

“I am not at liberty to say,” he replied. “Policy of the Trading Council.”

And there it was again, the same nonanswer to my most important questions. Why couldn’t anyone on these stupid rings just tell the truth? Every response was a diversion.

“Can I ask another one?”

“How many do you plan on asking?”

“I — I . . . don’t know.”

“You may ask me three more questions. I’m sure that’s all we’ll have time for before we reach the city of Nacreo.”

Three questions? I had a million, and Hach was a Trading Council member. Didn’t they know everything? I watched the city growing in front of me as the flier sped toward the spaceport. Three questions. Better start now.

“Do you know what’s happening to my sister?”

“Of course. Everyone does. That’s an odd waste of a question since I’m sure you, too, are aware of that answer.”

But that’s not what I meant!
I knew about the awakening. I knew it was some sort of transformation. That’s how the Keepers explained it, but I didn’t believe it. There was no way my sister or I had anything to do with the salvation of the universe.

“No, I meant what does it
mean
?”

“It means your sister is the Scion and you are the Tonat.”

“I know that, too.” I resisted the urge to call him a split-screen. “You don’t understand. No one knew I was coming to Orbis. I can’t possibly have anything to do with all of this. Our parents smuggled us onto the
Renaissance
in hopes of a better life, away from Earth. That’s all. Did
you
know that?”

“I did.”

“So then I don’t get it. I don’t understand how my sister is the Scion or how I’m supposed to be the Tonat. What’s going to happen to us if what they say is true?”

“Oh, it
is
true, but that, I’m afraid, is question number four, and we’ve arrived at the spaceport. Get ready for a jolt. I can’t land these things as well as the Keepers can.”

Once inside the spaceport, I gazed at the starships nestled in their docking bays as I waited for Hach on a crystal bench.
Is this their first time to the Rings of Orbis?
I wondered.
Are they here to do business with the Trading Council, or are their bellies filled with aliens looking for a better life?

“Keep going if
that’s
what you’re looking for,” I whispered to them.

I tried to remember what the
Renaissance
had looked like sitting in the same spot after its one-way journey from Earth, but I could not recall ever seeing our ship docked in the spaceport. What would have happened if we had never arrived? I suddenly wondered. Where would I be right now if I had listened to Switzer and helped him escape with the
Renaissance
? Would I have been able to pull it off? I didn’t even know I was a softwire back then.

I watched the largest ship unhook and push back, moving like a Samiran in the crystal-cooling tank. The nose of the starcraft pushed away from me as if sniffing out the open space behind it. Suddenly I sprang from the bench and rushed to the window. I wanted to be on that ship! At that very moment, as I pressed against the glass, I wanted nothing more than to feel the thrust of the engines against my chest. I couldn’t explain why, but my stomach surged with a huge gulp of regret as the starship disappeared into deep space. Then Hach called for me, and I followed him to our ship.

Inside the shuttle to Orbis 4, the drill was familiar. I was placed in a lower cabin while Hach sat in an area reserved for Citizens.
Where would the Scion sit?
I wondered as I glanced at the empty plastic benches.
If I had chosen to be the Tonat, would I still be sitting here?

“Your actions risk your life, they risk your sister’s life . . .”

I shook Theylor’s dire words from my head and tried to focus on the activity visible through the portal that lined the shuttle’s cabin, but the huge passenger shuttles tethered to the spaceport only reminded me of my friend Toll. Would he have approved of my choice? Of course not. He would have insisted I follow in my father’s footsteps — a Space Jumper whom I had never met and whose origin was still a mystery to me. Argh! So many things pointed to a conclusion that I was simply not willing to accept. I was
not
just some kid from Earth. Neither was Ketheria,
but why
? How did this happen?

Even if it was true, I still refused to become a Space Jumper. I had my reasons, and the most important one was waiting for me on Orbis 4. I had made a promise to Max that I would
never
become a Space Jumper. I knew full well how much she detested Space Jumpers, and it would kill me to have her think of
me
like that. I
was
going to watch over my sister, but I would protect Ketheria in my own way, no matter how difficult that proved to be.

After the shuttle pulled away, I must have fallen asleep with my face pressed against the glass. I woke to find Hach standing over me.

“Get up,” he ordered. “We’re here.”

I wiped the drool off the window and looked out at the spaceport of Orbis 4. The ring was in shadow, and the inky darkness was pierced by a multitude of lights that glittered throughout the port. Red beacons flashed across the sky, alerting incoming ships to the tallest buildings inside the port, while glaring white spotlights interrogated the docked spaceships, exposing the fatigue of deep-space travel. Gold, orange, and green lights advertised the locations of the different trading chambers within the port, while frosted blue lights wove their way through the different levels, one after another, like a stream of frozen water. The spaceport on Orbis 4 was a busy place.

My temples throbbed and I felt nauseous as I jogged to keep up with Hach. Then it dawned on me that this was the farthest I had ever been from Ketheria. Ever since we were young, I had never liked being apart from her for long periods of time, and whenever we were separated, I became distracted by a weird empty feeling that I had always assumed was simply anxiety. I never really paid much attention to it, but after the awakening started, it had become more noticeable. This was the worst I had felt since the start of her awakening, and it was also the farthest I had been from her — a fact that was not lost on me.

I followed Hach as he marched across the spaceport and through one of the many exits. Once outside, we descended a broad set of stone steps that led into a city. When I caught sight of the city, I gasped. Hach turned and saw me gawking.