Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon (13 page)

They hurtled along underneath the tracks, a good twenty meters aboveground. Chase held tight to Lilli, not daring to look down again after the first glimpse of how high they were. Lilli in turn held on to Analora, whose arms were nestled snugly around Parker's waist. Chase gritted his teeth and watched the pylons whip past.

With no warning, a gravity train blasted by overhead like an explosion. The shock wave sent the bike careening down a few feet, tilting them hard to the left for a few breathless seconds. Chase dug his fingers into Lilli's side so hard she squeaked, staring down at the distant ground and wondering what would happen if he fell. Dr. Bishallany had tested his phasing enough to know that it was an adrenaline-linked involuntary reaction, but they never had a chance to test his reaction to falling onto solid ground. Would he phase right into the ground and be okay, or would he shatter every bone in his body like a normal person? Before he slipped off and found out the answer, Parker was able to right the bike, and they hurtled onward.

Before long the view below began to change from brush and fields to pavement as they reached the outskirts of the city. Chase couldn't see much more below than an occasional pedestrian or a dartlike vehicle zipping beneath the tracks, but it wouldn't take more than one person noticing the four Earthan children on a Storrian border patrol hoverbike to set off some alarms.

He tried to lean around Lilli. “We need to ditch this bike!” The wind snatched the words right out of his mouth, but enough must have gotten through, because Parker nodded and began steering them down toward the ground.

They sailed to a stop alongside the base of a pylon. As she climbed down from the bike, Analora already had her locator out and was frowning as she poked at the screen.

“Here, let me see it,” said Parker, reaching for the locator.

Analora pulled it out of his reach with an irritated sigh. “I can do it.”

Chase peeked around the pylon at the city. The tall, conical buildings around them were made of the same curious woven material as the farmer's house, rosy gold in the afternoon sunshine. Other buildings were smaller, bullet-shaped, and made of a chalky white material, with wide windows that stretched halfway around. Storrians in groups of two or three strolled down wide sidewalks of black marble in clothes of loose, gauzy material, while in the streets light, open carriages pulled by furry cow-like animals moved passengers at a tranquil pace beneath the shadows of the hovercars that flew overhead.

“Rostanna is both a square and a hotel,” Analora said, scrolling and zooming on the locator. “And it looks like maybe their capitol building as well? Which were you supposed to go to?”

Chase frowned. “I don't know. The person just said the Rostanna.”

“Well, they're all at the same place. How we find this person when we get there is up to you.” She looked up. “Oh man, we're going to get spotted in a heartbeat. Chase, pull your scarf up and cover your face.” She helped him adjust the silky gray tube scarf Vidal had given him so that only his eyes were showing.

Parker snickered. “That's cute.”

“You get one too, pal,” she said, shaking out her white scarf, which was nearly big enough to double as a thin blanket. Dark splotches marred it where she'd used it to wipe the havarnox sap from Parker's finger.

Parker looked alarmed. “You can't use that. It's got poison on it.”

She grabbed the middle of the scarf with both hands and ripped it unevenly in two, handing him one half. “Don't chew on it and you'll be fine. Wrap up. Lilli, can you unroll the neck of your sweater and pull it over your head?”

“These are terrible disguises,” said Chase.

“We'll use back streets and keep close to the buildings,” Analora said. “Unless you have a better idea?”

They looked like a band of ridiculous nomad hobos with their scarf- and sweater-covered heads as they scurried out from behind the train pylon. Analora pointed at a smaller street that branched off from the main boulevard, her locator still in her other hand. Even on the smaller street there were Storrians on the sidewalks, and Chase knew they were attracting attention.

As they walked, looking up only in quick glances, something stood out to Chase: The only people on the street, besides them, were Storrians. The last planet he'd been on, the Federation colony Qesaris, had a mixed population from all kinds of civilizations at the Alpha, Epsilon, and Iota levels. The streets had been divided into blue and gray sectors determining what kinds of species could go where, but he'd spent most of his time there in the all-encompassing gray sector, surrounded by Ambessitari and Shartese and a variety of other unusual creatures. There were none of those here.

The streets led around the circular buildings in meandering paths, never going straight for very long. Analora and Parker argued over the route on the locator, but the one thing they agreed on was that it was best they walk quickly. The closer they got to the Rostanna, the more Storrians they encountered on the sidewalks, and nearly everyone flared their eyebrow stalks curiously when they looked over at the strange little group.

Lilli was the first one to hear the whine of the hoverbike, and she tugged urgently at Chase's sleeve, pointing back at the dark, armor-clad Storrians atop it as it came flying around a white building. “Border guard!” she squeaked.

Parker cursed and dashed toward the nearest building, one of the taller woven ones, and they all ducked through the rounded door. Golden shade seeping through the woven exterior provided light inside, and it took Chase's eyes a moment to adjust. Like the farmer's house, the center of the building was empty all the way to the top, and the walls were lined with hundreds of small cubby spaces connected by winding paths that jutted out like balconies with no railings. Storrians trundled along these precarious pathways, their stumpy legs and low center of gravity keeping them steady, and they hummed as they went, the sound blending and echoing up through the enclosed structure to make a beautiful, gentle harmony.

He only caught a few seconds of the music as they rushed around the base of the interior, unnoticed by the Storrians above, and exited onto a different street. The hoverbike was nowhere in sight, but knowing it was somewhere nearby kept them all looking up nervously as they walked.

“We're pretty close now,” said Analora. “Four more, um, blocks.”

The sun wasn't even at its peak in the sky yet. Chase's steps grew faster. Despite all they'd had to do, he was proud that they'd made it all the way here on their own. Who would they find there waiting for them? What he learned here could change everything.

As they neared the square, a faint roaring noise started to come from down the street, echoing off the high woven walls of the buildings. Chase glanced at Parker, who frowned, shaking his head. “I don't know,” Parker muttered. “Let's all stay close together.”

The noise made itself out to be some sort of chant, but the collective roar of voices was too muddled for the translink to decipher what was being said. As they rounded the corner, hundreds of Storrians appeared, crowding side by side in the square, pumping both arms over their heads as they chanted.

With a shock, Chase finally understood what it was they were saying:
“Blast them out, send them back.”

“Are they talking about…?” he shouted, barely making his words heard over the chants.

“The Werikosa occupation,” answered Parker. “They're protesting.”

The soft coral faces of the Storrian protesters were twisted into harsh scowls, their tiny eyes pinched with anger, in sharp contrast with the leisurely, harmonious lifestyle he'd seen in the rest of the city. Chase wondered why they were so enraged over the occupation of a moon thousands of miles above them. Obviously none of these people lived on the moon they were so worked up about—what difference did it make in their lives if another species wanted to share it with them?

Over a thousand wispy Storrian heads, Chase saw a flash of blond. It grew closer, bouncing among the crowd, and finally came close enough that he could see that it was Parri Dietz. A wave of protesters crushed toward him, pushed out by some force deep in the crowd he couldn't see, and he had to adjust his footing or risk phasing through one of them. When he looked back up again, the reporter had somehow clambered up on a chalky ledge, touching her temple and looking out over the fracas as her lips moved, probably reporting on the scene.

Another crush of Storrians, this time almost a stampede, rushed toward them. “Link hands!” yelled Parker. He took Chase's hand, but a large Storrian pushed between them, and Chase slipped away. On his other side, Analora shrieked, grabbing Lilli and pulling her backward in a hug. Soon Chase couldn't see any of them, just a horde of protesters streaming by on either side. The chanting was loud, but threading between the protests was a singular high-pitched scream.

“Lilli!” he shouted. Struggling to stay on his feet, he began to push through the crowd in the direction he'd seen her and Analora go, trying to move around the protesters by letting himself phase through arms and hips to move more quickly. The Storrian bodies were so wide that he couldn't see more than one person past himself, so he dropped to a crouch to see if he could spot anyone's feet, but all he saw was a shuffling forest of thick Storrian legs.

A hand—an Earthan hand—reached down toward him, and he took it. To his surprise, it was Parri Dietz. “Are you okay?” she shouted, pulling him to his feet. His face scarf, he realized, had long since collapsed around his neck. “I saw you go down. Come with me.”

Chase shook his head, resisting. “I have to find my friends!”

Parri Dietz pointed in the direction she was heading. “They went into a building over there. Just follow me.”

Getting through the crowd was tougher when he couldn't let himself phase anymore, but Chase let Parri Dietz lead him to a white building at the end of the square. To his immense relief, the others were already inside. Analora crouched in front of a table where she was tending to a shaken Lilli. Parker grinned at him, although Chase guessed most of the grin was for Parri Dietz. “Glad you could join us.”

A Storrian woman came down a steep ramp with a pile of tablecloths in her arms, and Chase prepared himself for a scolding and ejection from the building. “You poor children!” she cried. “I saw the little girl fall—are you alright, child? Come up to a dining room where it's safer. Ms. Dietz! So nice to see you here again.”

With a wary look, Chase nodded at the others to follow the woman up the ramp. The crush outside the door was getting worse, and they were clearly trapped for the time being.

The chalky white building was lined with cubbies just like the woven ones, and here each cubby contained a table, making Chase guess that this was a restaurant. They went all the way to an upper cubby with a long viewing window from which they could look out onto the square. Parri Dietz lifted her ever-present camera to film the waves of Storrians shouting and pushing at one another.

The square—actually more a circle—was ringed by both the woven gold and chalky white structures, but standing out among them was a pale blue building with elegantly wrought silver frames covering each of its round windows. Watching, Chase realized that the stream of people going in and out of the blue building, though mostly Storrian, included the occasional Earthan. He peered closely to see if he could spot anybody who seemed to be looking for someone.

The Storrian woman had gone through a high doorway into another cubby and a minute later brought them each a steaming bowl of some kind of milky drink. Chase sipped it to be polite, silently gagging at the creamy, intense floral flavor. The woman looked out at the protest with them and folded her arms. “The police won't put a stop to these protests because they want those Werikosa off our moon just as much as any of us. But it's been destroying my business for weeks.”

“Why do you want them gone?” asked Chase. “It wouldn't affect you if they just stayed up there, would it?”

The woman gave him a strange look. “Yes, because they would be
closer
. They're fine where they are, back on Werikos.”

“Werikos is a wasteland,” said Parri Dietz, still looking out the window. “Their seasons grow more and more severe, killing thousands each year.”

“That's not our problem,” said the Storrian woman. “If they took better care of their resources, maybe it wouldn't be such a miserable place.” Abruptly she returned to the back room.

“The Werikosa can't win anyway,” said Parker. “Federation laws give a planet ownership over its own moon. They're squatting on land that doesn't belong to them.”

“If that's the case, then Storros owns Werikos too,” said Parri Dietz, looking back from the window. When Chase frowned at her, she continued. “Werikos is, technically speaking, another moon of Storros, even though they have completely separate civilizations. It's farther away than Rhima, and their orbit has been degrading for millennia. That's the reason why their environment is worsening, not mismanagement of resources. Without a new homeworld, the Werikosa civilization will eventually vanish.”

“And since they don't have the giant rhenium deposits that Storros does, nobody's going to fall over themselves trying to help them,” added Parker. Parri Dietz nodded at him with a wry smile.

Chase looked back out the window. Time was ticking away, and anxiety had started building up under his skin. “Where do you think we were supposed to meet this person?” he asked Parker in a low voice.

Parker shook his head, staring at the crowds. “No idea. This might be a bust. Whoever picked this place to meet was not using their thinking brain.”

Parri Dietz put her camera in a jacket pocket. “Where were you kids trying to go?”

“Um, the Rostanna,” said Chase.