The Farpool (60 page)

“I don’t know. Really, I’m not sure anymore.
I like trying to help Kloosee and Pakma…it’s…, I don’t know…it’s
like I have to prove something. Dad thinks I’m going to follow him
into the shop business. Hawking T-shirts and giving scuba lessons.
There are times I can dig that, but most of the time, I want more.
On Seome, it’s like…I’m somebody other than Mack Meyer’s son. I’m
important. People listen to me. I have ideas and they listen.
That’s never happened before. So yeah, I’d kind of like to
stay.”

Angie rolled over and stared right into his
eyes. “Then we have a problem, don’t we? You and me, I mean. Chase,
do you love me?”

Now Chase tried out several answers before
opening his mouth. “Of course, I do…you know that. I want us to
work…be together.”

“We can’t do that…not if you’re on Seome and
I’m here. Even if I go back and get unmodified---or whatever, I
still want to come home. Scotland Beach…Florida…that’s home. I
can’t stay on Seome anymore…not for long. I came with you because I
thought it’d be a great adventure…it sure beats Algebra II and
World History and Mr. Winans. But I miss Dr. Wright and the Clinic
and running with Gwen and my girlfriends. I want to go to school. I
want to be somebody too. I can’t do that on Seome.”

Chase decided to focus on practical
things. The other stuff was just too…hard to deal with—“You still
have to come back to get fixed. I mean…you know, unmodified.
The
em’took
.”

“Christ, you make it sound like I’m a
cat about to be neutered. Chase, what are we going to do? You know
that song the Croc-Boys sing—‘
Lovin’ in
the Dark’
?”

“I know it. I wrote part of it.”

“’
When you pitch it too
fast’
—“

“…’
you wind up dropping the
pass’
…yeah, yeah…what about it?”

Angie sat up, looked right into Chase’s eyes.
Then she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the gray scaly
thing that he’d become. She wanted to see what she remembered: the
faint blond beard and moustache, the blue eyes, the scar above the
right eye due to a fishing accident, the chin dimple and the big,
floppy ears.

“Chase, that describes us. We’re going too
fast. We’re dropping the pass.”

But he didn’t want to hear any more. “Look,
the sun’s already gone down. I’ve got to get back to Pulkor and
Veskort. I came back for you, to bring you…well, maybe not exactly
home, but you know…back to Seome. So…you coming or what?”

Angie sighed.
It always ends like this
. Whenever there was a
decision to be made, it couldn’t be made simply, with no argument
or fuss. No, there had to be drama, pain, tears, fights, stomping
off. And in the end, she always gave in. That’s what Chase did to
her.

“Let’s go.”

The two of them slithered through the grass,
down the rocky slope, then dived into the cold waters of Burrard
Inlet. They swam at a gentle pace past the pilings of Lions Gate
Bridge and headed for deeper water.

Chase finagled with his echopod until he was
sure Angie could hear him okay. They stroked side by side for a few
minutes, until they were west of the Park, abreast of Third Beach
and headed out to sea.

“We agreed to meet just after sunset, a few
miles off shore. I’m supposed to swim in a big circle and they’ll
home on me.”

“Just so we don’t get eaten by sharks or
speared by fishermen,” Angie said.

They swam in circles for nearly an
hour, with Chase grumbling under his breath “
Where are those bozos, come on, come on, we haven’t got all
day….”

Angie had to smile at his mutterings, while
she was dodging curious schools of cod and herring that swam
alongside them. Patience had never been one of Chase’s strong
points.

It was fully dark and cold when something
bumped against Chase’s legs. Afraid it was a huge tuna, or halibut
or who knew what, Chase kicked out but realized that his foot had
struck something harder than flesh or skin.

It was the nose of the kip’t. Barely visible
inside the cockpit, Pulkor and Veskort had found them. By
prearranged signal, the kip’t drifted down to the rocky seabed and
lodged itself between two banks of coral. Chase led Angie down and
introduced her to his Omtorish colleagues.

Angie found Pulkor much like Longsee,
with exaggerated politeness and a disarming, almost bemused smile
on his face. Veskort was another matter.
Typical soldier
, thought Angie. Prodsmen were
all alike. Gruff, curt, perpetual scowl, though how she knew that
she could never explain, even to herself.
They all look alike
, she told herself, though
she’d been around enough Omtorish and Ponkti and Eep’kostic people
to detect subtle differences, even when she couldn’t really ‘pulse’
them like she was supposed to.

“Is the Farpool still there?” Chase asked.
Somehow, with some grumbling and mumbling, the three of them
managed to make room for Angie, who was jammed in the rear like a
bag of gisu shells.

“I can still hear it,” Pulkor insisted. “The
tone is different…we should hurry. The vortex may be
collapsing.”

“Then get going,” Chase decided. That earned
him a derisive grunt from Veskort, who was piloting.

They spent the better part of ten hours
homing in on the unique sound signature of the Farpool. Pulkor
described it as like a whistle, higher than most whirlpools, owing
to its intensity. It was that whistle that was lessening in
intensity with every passing hour.

Both prodsmen agreed that it was foolish to
even consider sending more kelke through the wormhole until the
thing could be stabilized. “And that depends on the Tailless
People,” Pulkor added. “And you,” he added, meaning Chase.

Chase decided to bring up the phantom
proposal that everybody knew about but no one would
acknowledge…emigrating from Seome.

“Do you think our oceans are hospitable
enough for you to make a home here?”

Veskort honked. “Never. Too cold. Too
salty. We call it
p’omor’te
—disgusting, if you ask me.”

“He means turbid,” explained Pulkor.
“There
is
much sediment in
these waters. Perhaps…if we had more time to explore, we could find
suitable regions. Most Omtorish would suffocate here…or throw up.
The currents are rough too, like the Pom’tel, maybe worse. This
idea must be discussed thoroughly. And more data
gathered.”

“But if your sun goes dark, all life on Seome
will cease. Then you may not have any choice.”

Pulkor granted that. “True enough, but if we
can keep the Farpool operating normally, we can go to many worlds,
many times and places. It’s just a matter of understanding the
Farpool, really, predicting it, controlling it, using it
wisely.”

“Kah
,” spat
Veskort as he turned them slightly to left. The kip’t was cruising
along at a good clip, occasionally rocked by currents and
crossflows. “Having my guts scrambled inside a vortex…who wants
that? I’d rather stay on Seome and take my chances. We can defend
ourselves, with the right weapons.”

In time, the currents became rougher, with
greater energy and a definite direction. Pulkor announced that the
Farpool was near.

I guess I’m going back, one
way or another
, Angie thought. She decided it was
probably for the best. But she planned to push for Longsee and his
scientists to undo the
em’took
, put her back the way she had
been
. I don’t care about the risk. I don’t
want to live like a circus freak anymore.

She said none of this to Chase. But she
didn’t have to. His look at her meant he knew just what she was
thinking.

Veskort struggled with the controls, working
the planes and rudders and stabilitors as hard as he could, trying
to stay in the center of the rapidly growing tunnel they were being
inexorably drawn into. All around them, foam and froth and bubbles
and every imaginable species of fish came barreling past, caught up
in the spin of the vortex and sucked onward into its roaring
mouth.

Soon, the little kip’t began a slow spin,
which only increased, despite everything Veskort did. Angie felt
something hot rising in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to
throw up but the vortex was tossing them about like a feather in a
hurricane…she’d lived on the Gulf Coast of Florida long enough to
have gone through several of those.

Then came the banging as the clashing
currents threw them one way then another and before she could brace
herself, they were in, grabbed as if by a giant hand and spun madly
to blinding velocity…she didn’t remember it being like this…was
something wrong…were they all going to die?

Angie tried to scream out loud but the tunnel
was collapsing and her vision blurred and then she passed out.

Chapter 20

Dispatch #12.175.222

HQS. War Staff Timejump Command

Transto: Ult.-Maj Dringoth, CDR
1
^st
Time Displacement
Battery

Coded

Commandstar was briefly attacked by a Coethi
jumpship six milliterr ago and partially disabled. TACTRON has
assigned me to damage analysis and I must tell you, Dringoth, it is
extensive. Coethi was able to momentarily displace the ship back to
a time when it was still under construction. TACTRON countered with
a shift in voidtime to another timestream but not before the
destruction had spread. I don’t have to describe to you the
explosive effects of such instantaneous displacement.

The result is that Commandstar is unable to
provide any assistance in drawing Coethi vessels into your range.
We are currently shifting through voidtime at a very slow rate that
makes us extremely vulnerable to another attack, while repairs are
being made. We may even have to re-enter truetime for awhile.
TACTRON’s war programming prohibits the unnecessary risking of
Commandstar, so for the time being, you will have to rely on your
own scanning for protection. I realize what a burden that puts on
your system but it cannot be helped, believe me. We are barely
functional here. I even lost approximately 3% of my own core data,
which is uncomfortable, in case you were wondering.

The fact that Coethi was able to match our
random timejump sequence and make such an attack has caused great
disruption here. TACTRON has assigned some URMEs to compute the
probability of recurrence but unfortunately, entropy prevails in
the information flow, so analysis is impossible. I know of some
URMEs who are refusing to submit to TACTRON’s dictatorship
(calculating that TACTRON’s obsession with the timejump sequence
prevented it from analyzing more productive defense strategies—like
the Time Twister) and many are expending valuable processing time
on the formation of pseudo-organic emotional structures. This, of
course, is fruitless and I have not succumbed to the temptation. We
have much more important uses for that information.

But it would be inaccurate of me to describe
the summation of morale as anything but desperate panic. TACTRON
has suspended engineering work on all additional Time Twisters,
pending the completion of repairs to Commandstar. You are on your
own, Dringoth. The base at Storm is the only effective defense in
this part of the Halo and TACTRON is ordering all jumpships and
chasers to assemble in the protected zone around Sigma Albeth B.
The Twister will have to serve as our main redoubt until
Commandstar is functional again. Until then, Coethi will be able to
roam the rest of the Halo at will.

It is a tremendous gamble, Dringoth. Many
URMEs are not certain that TACTRON has correctly computed the
probability of our survival, with only one Time Twister for
defense. I need not remind you how imperative it is that the
Twister perform as designed over the next few decaterrs. Any
failure could be catastrophic to the Uman cause.

TACTRON computes P = 1 that Coethi will
unleash a barrage of starballs once our strategy becomes
obvious.

There will be no further dispatches from me
until Commandstar is within your displacement perimeter.

URME 101 (Unit Reserve Memory Entity)

Endtrans

End Code.

Seome

Kinlok Island

Time: 768.4, Epoch of Tekpotu

They came through the Farpool in a
teeth-jarring, bone-rattling crash, pummeled and pounded and
bounced from one side to another. Chase was afraid the kip’t would
come apart; it had never really been designed to transit a
wormhole.

The deceleration slammed all of them against
each other and the sled shook and shimmied as it plowed into
colder, denser water…the waters of the Ponk’el Sea. Straight away,
several leaks sprung, with numbing ice-cold seeping in through half
a dozen cracks.

“I’m freezing back here!” Angie cried
out.

“Me too but there’s nothing we can do…just
hold on to me.” Chase felt her fingers clawing into his back and
for once was glad he had armored skin now.

Veskort wrestled with the planes and rudders
and eventually managed to whip them past the whirlpools surrounding
the Time Twister until they had reached calmer water.

Pulkor shook with nervous tension as his
prodsman friend guided them through tricky cross-currents and
turbulent froth. Finally, they slowed down.

“Kah
, I don’t
want to do that again…this kip’t’s ready to be junked.”

Pulkor said, “At least, we got through…the
Farpool’s still working. This looks like where we left from.”