Nikolas and Company: The Merman and The Moon Forgotten (15 page)

“Can fire kill them?” said
Nick.

“No. Just slows them down,” Xanthus
answered.

The kick made both boys square their
sights. The stars in their cockpit view trembled, and it began to
rise from the ground.

“And we have lift off.” Nick
smiled.

“OOOHH—MMAA—MAAAN—NN.” Xanthus’ flabby
face was undergoing its own launch sequence. “TT—HHIISSS IISS
AAWWWE—SSOSSOME!”

Within minutes the GPS read twenty
miles altitude. The panel flashed that the launch sequence would
end in fifteen seconds, a cue for Nick and Xanthus to take the
controls.

“Almost forgot.” Nick reached into his
khaki pocket and pulled out Grand’s chronostone. “The key to the
gateway.”

Nick put the stone onto his lap, leaned
forward, and grabbed the control stick. It felt metallic and cold,
nothing like the holobox version. Nick pulled the stick back, but
it kicked out of his grip.

“Hey!” He put his hands up.

A hologram man dressed in a captain’s
outfit sprung from the console. “Welcome to your auto-pilot, Mr.
Steward Lyons. We have already plotted the course uploaded to your
keycard.”

Xanthus moaned,
“Auto-pilot.”

The computer displayed a green line
arching from Earth to a white square.

“No,” Nick yelled at the hologram.
“We’re the pilots. We’re supposed to fly it. I hate this
planet!”

The shuttle turned a strong left and
towards Moon.

The auto-pilot announced, “Now, sit
back, relax, and enjoy this timeless singer from the twentieth
century: Tony Bennett.”

A hologram of Tony Bennett began
snapping to the beat. “Oooh, the good life. Full of fun, seems to
be the ideal . . .”

“Wow,” Xanthus said. “Look at those
stars. Never been in space before . . . Hey, Nick.”

“Yeah.”

“Back at the church—something weird
happened when your grandpa punched the scucca. His eyes were all
nuclear reactor blue. His hands, too.”

“It’s awesome. Grand calls it jynn’us.
We all get these mythic powers when we breathe Mon air,” Nick
said.

“No way!” Xanthus’ salami arms punched
the air.

“I know, right?” said Nick.

“Don’t tease me like that. Are you
serious?”

“I’m not kidding. And your jynn’us is
supposed to reflect who you are or something. It’s gonna be fun on
the other side.”

“Totally agree . . . seriously, those
are a lot of stars . . . Hey, bet I’ll get that power where I soak
up everyone else’s power. But I won’t be a villain or nothing. I’ll
just be like the Sorcerer General over a legion of magical
creatures. Yeah. That’d be sweet. Hey, dude. Ten minutes, twelve
seconds to vector. Are we supposed to do something?”

“Yeah. Grand gave me a key, but just
give me another minute. Need to catch my breath.”

“It’s the good life, to be free, and
explore the unknown,” Tony crooned away as the sun’s rays escorted
them spaceward.

Nick glanced at the perimeter camera.
The American continent was completely shrouded by the cloud cover,
but more importantly, the scuccas started to slip from the hull.
The first two peeled off, and the third was dragged down until its
talons couldn’t hold any longer. His chest deflated.

They’re gone.

Nick grinned. He had to hand it to
himself. They launched the shuttle, managed to get away from the
monsters, and no one got hurt . . . for the most part. Even if the
auto-pilot took away all the fun, at least they made it off Earth.
Then it hit him. He looked back at Earth and smiled.

I got away.

And it really wasn’t all
that complicated,
Nick thought.
See, Caroline? Life can be simple. Just keep it
simple.

“Oh the good life,” Tony sang on.
“Let’s you hide the sadness you fee—”

“Forgive the interruption—” Tony
Bennett was replaced by the auto-pilot. “—an uninvited passenger
has been detected on the hull.”

WHAMM-CRAKK!!
The scucca head-butted the cockpit
window.

“Woah!” The boys sat up.

The scucca’s talons anchored into the
shuttle, shifting its gaze between the two.

CRAKK!! CRAKK!!
CRAKK!!
A white thread shot across the
cockpit.

“Dude! It can’t breathe out here,” Nick
said.

“I know, I know.” Xanthus quickly
flipped through his bestiary.

CRAKK!! CRAKK!!
A dozen more threads flared.

“It doesn’t breathe oxygen.” Xanthus
held up the bestiary. “It lives on scent!”

“What do you mean, scent? You have to
have oxygen to breathe scent.”

CRAKK!!
Nick’s cockpit view was a net of fractured glass.

“Asteroid repellant!” Nick pointed to
Xanthus’ console. It was common for smaller asteroids and space
junk to cross paths with interplanetary shuttles.

CRAKK!! CRAKK!!
CRAKK!!

“Right.” Xanthus grabbed the trigger.
The gun kicked. No sound, just a flash of light and the scucca
spinning into the inky void.

Tony Bennett ended a pirouette. “Well,
just wake up. Kiss the good life, goodbye. . . .”

The vector sign
flashed:
01:53.

“OK,” said Xanthus. “So where is that
gate?”

“The key!” Nick almost forgot. “In my
lap . . .”

Nick picked up the chronostone and
pulled out a piece of paper.

“Oops,” Nick said, holding up the
spell, which had somehow wrapped around a stray piece of
gum.

Xanthus buried his face in his
hands.

“Don’t worry. I got this.” Nick pulled
the piece of paper apart, stretching the gum with it. The spell was
partially hidden by chewed gum.

Pa—

Nick started to pull bits of gum off
the paper.

Pat—

“Forty-two, forty-one, forty,” Xanthus’
voice quivered.

A piece tore with the gum.

Pata—

Nick tried to reattach the ripped
piece.

Pata—hu—

Patahu.

“Patahu!” Nick grabbed the stone and
shouted, “Patahu!”

The chronostone quaked in his hands and
began to burn. Nick dropped it. The stone vibrated, hesitated
momentarily, and then glass shattered from within. The cockpit
filled with hot, yellow light.

Nick cupped his hands around his face
to try and see past the webbed glass. Nothing changed.

“Do you see anything over there?” said
Nick.

“No, dude,” said Xanthus. “No expanding
vortex. No epic, magical gate. Nothing.”

“Come on, Grand,” Nick
groaned.

“Nick,” Xanthus said, “your
grandpa
is
nuts,
isn’t he? We’re dead! We’re all dead! The navigation system says we
can’t go back now. Not enough fuel. I never even got to kiss
Caroline on the mouth.”

Nick turned slowly to
Xanthus.

“What? I know you guys think I’m this
virtuoso of mythological creatures, but I need love,
too!”

Nick’s eyes fell on the trash chute
just below Xanthus’ leg.

“Waitasecond!” Nick said. “These
shuttles are lined with a UV shield. Grand said the stone
interacted with solar light. We have to get the stone
outside.”

The chute slid open at the presence of
Nick’s hand, and he shoved the chronostone down. They heard rock
scraping through the garbage chute. Metal screamed, and the shuttle
kicked from the rear.

A reddish wave rolled over the
shuttle.

“Wow,” said Xanthus.

“That’s a good sign, right, Nick?”
Haley’s voice crackled over the intercom.

“It’s the gateway. Strap yourselves
in.”

A shimmering pocket materialized into a
bright, conical object. Its walls were lined with thousands of red
comets spinning into a magma center. For all Nick knew, the gateway
was the building block of the universe, ready to crush the ship
into light and heat. They were about to find out.

“Here we go . . .” someone said over
the intercom.

Twelve •
Mermaids

They were thrown out of a bloom of red
fire.

“Did it work—?” Haley’s voice faded
away and then returned. “That’s awesome! Are you guys seeing
this?”

Xanthus and Nick gasped. Grand’s
stardust rendering had nothing on the real Mon and
Earth.

“Are you seeing this, Nick?” Haley
repeated. Brandy and Caroline squealed from somewhere in the
background.

“Yeah,” said Nick. “There is another
world, but it is in this one.”

It was Xanthus’ turn to look at
Nick.

“Yeats,” said Nick.

The brother planets were anything but
peaceable. Mon hung over Earth, recalling images of Atlas bearing
the weight of an entire planet. The sun cast a paternal light
between the two weather systems, revealing a black mass of cloud
and dust. Lightning crackled around the otherwise hidden tether.
But it was the unreal beauty of Mon that made Nick unbuckle his
harness and crawl over Xanthus. Scattered underneath the clouds
were islands, craggy and desperate. The continents were covered in
ripples of mountains smoothing into deep valleys. The land masses
were utterly blanketed in wild vegetation. There might be cities
down there, but Nick couldn’t see them.

It looked nothing like Moon.

“Are you guys getting this?” Tim
said.

“Yeah,” said Nick. “All of
it.”

“Please remain in your seats as we
begin our descent to Earth’s Keranu Walls,” the auto-pilot
announced. The shuttle took a sharp right from Mon and steered
directly toward Earth.

“Wait,” said Xanthus. “We’re not
supposed to land on Earth. We’re going to Huron, I
thought?”

“I don’t know.” Nick buckled himself
in. “We’ll see, I guess.”

The shuttle nosed toward Earth. Belts
of clouds were the only thing they could see for several minutes
until they hit atmosphere. The stars disappeared under steam and
fire. Finally, they passed through the cloud line, revealing a
swampy landscape with a circle of stone crowning the tether. On a
closer look, the tether seemed to be organic, even tree-like. Well,
aside from the fact that trees don’t grow to the size of
mountains.

“I think that’s the Keranu Wall,”
Xanthus said.

“Landing sequence initiated,” announced
the auto-pilot.

Suddenly, a grey object flashed by.
Before Nick could make out what it was, wind punched through the
cockpit and sprayed glass everywhere.

“Hold on to something!” Nick yelled to
the intercom. “We’ve been hit! Something blew out the windshield.
Prepare for a crash landing.”

The space shuttle flipped over, turning
cloud and Earth into a kaleidoscope. After a few rotations, the
shuttle stopped tumbling and fell into a corkscrew.

“Sorry, Caroline,” Nick said to
himself.

The passenger door whipped open,
revealing a very confused Grand. He leapt for Nick’s
controls.

“Auto-pilot overridden. Emergency
landing sequence initiated,” the auto-pilot announced.

After a few grunts and curses, Grand
leveled the shuttle. Nick heard something like the small blast of
air and two parachutes opening from the wings.

Too late.

Branches slapped the window. The
shuttle slammed ground, skipping over rocks and bushes. Tree limbs
shredded the parachutes. Rocks scrapped the bottom, and muddy water
sprayed over the windshield. They slid for what seemed like an
eternity, until a tuft of land kicked them to a stop. Grass and
dirt flicked upward and then rained down in thick, muddy
plops.

Welcome to the south side of
the Keranu Wall,
announced the
computer.

Grand’s quivering brow set on Nick. A
ribbon of blood cake ran around his eyes, down his cheek and across
his chest. He breathed deeply and roared, “Well done, Nikolas!
There’s my copilot.”

“That was awesome!” Nick stood to his
feet, adrenaline still pumping through him. “We were like spinning,
and then the parachute and then we just rammed into the
ground.”

“Something hit us?” said
Xanthus.

“You mean those?” Grand pointed to the
tether. “Groungers.”

Several winged tadpoles the size of a
small plane swarmed the tether. Electricity threaded through their
bodies, lighting up a mangle of intestines and bones.

“Groungers?” Xanthus said. “Those
aren’t in my bestiary. . . .”

“They feed off the tether’s
electricity. The shuttle’s power system was just another
meal.”

Grand stood full height, let out a
triumphant breath and stepped into the cabin door. “How are we?
Appendages connected to their traditional counterparts?”