The Furry MEGAPACK® Read online

  He understood the impulse that Rhiannon’s roommate felt: leave research behind and find a simple, straightforward way to do good. But that didn’t make it right. “I hope you’re not planning to follow your roommate’s example,” Druthel said. Though, they both knew she was. Rhiannon’s behavior had made that abundantly apparent. “But, if you are, then I have to remind you of your promise: I brought you somewhere special to me. Now you must work with me to save my world.”

  “Yes, I’ll help.”

  Druthel couldn’t help feeling a measure of sympathy for the small human huddled under his wing. They had more in common than he would have thought. More than their disparate biologies and electronically translated languages would suggest. “Let’s go back, then,” he said, and Rhiannon meekly complied.

  * * * *

  Back in the lab, Rhiannon became a different person. No longer the scared, uncertain creature that had huddled under Druthel’s wing, whispering grave confessions, she stood tall. As tall as her stature, barely half Druthel’s height, let her. And she spoke with confidence.

  The flurry of voices—human, Keat, wrombarran, srellick, and electronic—made it hard for Druthel to keep up with any particular individual’s contributions. It was more a question of following the zeitgeist of any particular line of research. Geologists shouted out ideas for stabilizing fault lines on Wrombarra’s populated continents. Physicists exclaimed discoveries about how to tune the array of echometers. And in the middle of it all, Rhiannon was the spark of insight and inspiration that Druthel hoped she would be. He was in awe of her. His instincts about her had been right, and he took pride in every contribution she made, if only for his small part in bringing her here.

  She didn’t speak often. And, when she did, Druthel often missed the exact words, for she spoke quietly and with brevity. Only a few words. Yet, the storm of ideas would morph around her. The other humans would grow quieter for a moment, tilt their heads, stand a little straighter. Subtle changes. Then the cacophony of voices would start again, and it was all Druthel could do to follow in the wake of the wave.

  Joni, Lulu, and Coco were in high demand, flying from shoulder to shoulder, trying to translate where ever they could be most useful.

  The storm of ideas lasted from morning until late at night, for days on end. Scant time was taken for hastily rushed meals. And all the while, quakes grew more powerful, ushering the scientists to work harder, concentrate more fiercely. Find the solution.

  While the team of geologists focused on stabilizing Wrombarra without a moon and a splinter group continued to work on methods of constructing a replacement moon out of asteroids, the bulk of the physicists followed Druthel and Rhiannon’s lead. Probes were constructed that could send carefully modulated signals back through hyperspace, and a series of them—each larger than the last—was sent across the threshold between normal space and hyperspace, chasing after the moon, ever deeper into that parallel dimension. The automated signals sent back data that proved unequivocally several things.

  First, although Wrombarra was no longer affected by the gravitational pull of its moon, the moon continued to be affected by the gravity of Wrombarra. It was still orbiting, only in a different dimension. Gravity passed into hyperspace but not out, like light through a one-way mirror. Second, the solar radiation from Wrombarra’s sun passed into hyperspace just as gravity did. So, even in the depths of hyperspace, Wrombarra’s moon was still touched with sunlight. And, finally, the massier the object sent into hyperspace, the greater the energy necessary to bring it back. So, while a spaceship could skip in and out of hyperspace, barely skimming the surface, an object as large as Wrombarra’s moon would have fallen to an almost impossible depth once breaching the barrier between hyper- and normal space. It would be almost impossible to bring back.

  Druthel stared at the lines of numbers that streamed across the computer terminal. The data from the probes continued to stream back to them from hyperspace, but it was not heartening. Druthel could sense the tone in the room. The fragments of speech he caught through the electronic translator or through Joni’s announcements told him that the human and srellick members of his team were giving up. Most of his own colleagues, the other wrombarrans, had moved on, days ago, to helping the geologists or the splinter sect working with asteroids.

  They were more scared of failing to stop the quakes than they were driven to succeed. Fear of failure made them short-sighted. Though, in this case, their choice might prove right: it would take the energy of a supernova, perhaps several, to bring their moon back. If he’d stopped chasing this dead end days ago, perhaps he could have sped up the work on building an artificial moon. He could have saved precious days. And saving days could save lives…

  Then, in the midst of his despair and self-recrimination, Druthel heard Rhiannon speak. Her voice was soft but clear to him in the crowd of voices. He always listened for her voice carefully. Usually, the others—especially her own human colleagues—did too. This time, Einray laughed, and Karlingoff spoke chidingly. The conversation didn’t halt for her. Joni didn’t bother to translate, and Druthel couldn’t make out Rhiannon’s words from the jumble of electronic translation.

  “Wait,” he said, looking up from the computer and seeking out Rhiannon’s gaze. “What did you say?” he said to her, but she stared back at him uncomprehendingly. Druthel turned to Joni: “What did Rhiannon say?” he asked. “Tell her to repeat it.”

  Joni passed on the message, and then she passed back Rhiannon’s response: “She said, If we can’t bring the moon back, maybe we could drop Wrombarra into hyperspace with it.”

  Druthel folded his wing, bringing the hand at the joint to his muzzle. His eyes were locked on Rhiannon’s, and he’d grown accustomed enough to her body language to tell that she was scared. He could see her hands shaking. She spoke in a whisper, but he had no way to translate the words. Everyone else in the lab was shouting, and even the Keats had got swept up in the heat of the argument themselves, breaking into and out of their pidgin language.

  The only side of the argument that Druthel could understand was wrombarran, and there was no consensus from them. Half the scientists loved Rhiannon’s idea. The others were furious: “Wrombarra will be cut off from the rest of galactic society!” one of his colleagues cried. Another shouted back, “Who cares? We were isolated to begin with!” The argument raged on, and the only thing clear was that Rhiannon’s idea had taken on a life of its own.

  Within the hour, calculations were completed for the exact power and frequency of an acoustiscope beam to push Wrombarra through the fabric of space, breaching the barrier into hyperspace. The planet’s own mass would carry it downward—metaphorically speaking—from there. It would settle to an appropriate depth, and then it would continue to orbit the sun as if nothing had changed, except for regaining its moon.

  The only difference would be that no spaceship from Wrombarra would ever be able to muster the energy to escape from that depth of hyperspace. All of wrombarran society would be cut off from the rest of normal space. Forever.

  The tone in the lab had utterly shifted. Instead of three separate groups competing to cure Wrombarra’s lunar cavity as fast as possible, now there were only two groups. A handful of scientists jubilantly worked on the design for a shipboard acoustiscope that the srellick ship could carry into space and aim at Wrombarra. Everyone else watched them in hushed disquietude.

  Before the sect of scientists who wanted to sink Wrombarra into hyperspace could finish their designs, a delegation from the high government arrived. Someone must have slipped out of the lab and informed them.

  All the scientists were sent home. Forcibly in a few cases. Quietly in most. The question of whether to sink Wrombarra into hyperspace had become a government matter, and the government didn’t want research continued that could lead to an irreversible situation. At least, not until the representative council voted on it.

  * * * *

  Druthel didn’t know what to do with
himself outside of the lab. His brain was buzzing, torn between elation at his triumph, shock at the twist their research had taken, and despair at the finality of their discovery. He had been right! Rhiannon was the key. And his planet was saveable.

  But the cost… It was one thing to spurn the society of the rest of the galaxy. It was another to be cut off from it forever.

  Druthel found Rhiannon at the base of the spire, outside the human quarters and alone. He hadn’t realized he was looking for her, merely turning restless circles in the sky, until he found her. She’d disappeared from the lab so quickly when the officials came…

  Druthel landed a few feet from Rhiannon. She was sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees in much the pose she’d been in when he first laid eyes on her.

  “You did it,” he said.

  She turned her face and looked up at him as the translator spoke to her. “Yes,” she said, in response. “I’ve cut another species off from space travel.”

  “Is that so bad?” Druthel asked. “Besides, we won’t know that until we know what the council decides.”

  “Well, then, maybe I haven’t done it,” Rhiannon said. “Either way…I don’t see how to be happy about this.” Rhiannon’s mouth turned down in a sad expression.

  Druthel didn’t know how to cheer her. He understood feeling conflicted about this triumph. Yet, it was a triumph. Wasn’t it? “Fly with me again,” he said.

  “Okay,” Rhiannon said, pushing herself up from the ground. “Take me somewhere new. Show me something I haven’t seen.” She didn’t say, something I won’t have the chance to see again.

  Rhiannon climbed aboard Druthel’s broad back and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kept her eyes open this flight, despite the fear in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t miss these sights. She’d never forgive herself once they were gone.

  Druthel flew away from the bacto-bogs. He flew toward the city he’d lived in most of his life. The towering magma spire that had recently been a bustling city, thick with wrombarrans in flight. Now the air was empty, except for gusts of heat that singed his wings. He’d never seen the city devoid of wrombarrans circling it at every height.

  It was a desolate cone of cinder and molten rock now. Red twisted down its sides, dripping hideously out of the caves that had once been entrances to the caverns and tunnels—his people’s homes—inside. Those would be gone now. Filled with new, molten rock. It would take his people forever to rebuild, even if their planet’s core settled down. Everything that hadn’t been brought with them to the refugee camps would be gone. From what news Druthel had heard, all the other major cities were the same.

  Druthel circled the city, closer and closer, until he could take the heat no more. With a swoop to a higher, cooler current, Druthel abandoned the city. Rhiannon clung tightly to his neck, and he realized that he’d exposed her unprotected skin, bare of fur, to the same heat that he could hardly withstand. He was sorry, but he took a grim satisfaction in it too. She acted like a scapegoat, blaming herself for his world’s self-begotten misfortune. And he badly needed a scapegoat right then.

  Druthel flew back to the shanty town, but a squeeze on his neck made him think that maybe Rhiannon didn’t want to go back yet either. So, instead of stopping, he flew on, bringing them back to the small cave overlooking the bacto-bog.

  This time, after Rhiannon climbed down from his back, Druthel put all his weight on his arms and lifted his feet up into the air. He grabbed the metal bar in the ceiling and hung comfortably above Rhiannon who’d curled up in her knee-hugging pose. Their heads were close, only inches apart.

  “Is your skin okay?” he asked.

  Rhiannon looked flushed; a pink glow suffused her face and arms, but she said, “I’m fine.” It felt like a sunburn, but she didn’t mind. “How long will it take?” she asked. “For your government to decide.”

  Druthel didn’t know, but he imagined they would decide quickly. Every day, the world was worse off. There was no incentive to wait. “If they decide quickly,” he said, “then your team will be leaving. It won’t take long to build that acoustiscope. In fact, I know they sent everyone home…but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a functional design finished tonight.”

  Druthel had been a staunch supporter of wrombarran isolation. Now he could have his wish, but it wasn’t his wish any more.

  “I’ve enjoyed working with you,” he said.

  Rhiannon was quiet for a long time. Then, she said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t fix it better.”

  “At least you fixed it,” he said.

  There were no more words shared that night, but, in the gentle glowing light from the bacto-forms, Rhiannon turned her face towards Druthel’s. Her mane brushed his muzzle, and he clicked his tongue to feel the shape of her alien body with his sonar. So close beside him. A moment later, she reached her hand towards his, and he found his fingers clasping hers. She stood up, moving her body, upside down compared to his, toward him. But she was small, and a slight pressure from his wing somersaulted her against him. He helped her hook her feet into the bar beside his own, and then he wrapped his wings around her.

  They slept together, hanging in his cave, overlooking the bacto-bogs until morning.

  * * * *

  The glow of the sun illuminated the orangey-hue of the bacto-bogs like fire. Unlike the magma, though, their light was life and giving.

  Druthel and Rhiannon awoke groggy and confused. They flew back together in a silence less comfortable than the one they’d shared all night. Druthel was confused by his feelings for Rhiannon. All these years, he’d hated humans—an abstract concept, a species of conquerors. But if he had the freedom, he would have flown this one small human all over his world, showing her everything that made it beautiful. He would have followed her back to her own lunar home on Wespirtech, merely hoping to learn more about her.

  This alien woman’s brilliance had set the wheels in motion that Druthel believed would save his planet. Her enigmatic brilliance that she herself felt guilty for… He wanted to show her that she had nothing to regret. Yet, if her plan was approved, he would barely have time to say goodbye.

  Druthel and Rhiannon went straight to the lab and found it already filled and buzzing. Despite the government order to halt work, several of Druthel’s wrombarran colleagues had continued to work through the night. Much as Druthel expected. They’d finished the designs for a shipboard acoustiscope and built a haphazard, ramshackle prototype of the two meter wide dish. The srellick scientists were already outside, wiring it to their ship and cementing it to the hull.

  “Where were you?” one of his colleagues asked Druthel. “You missed out on building the device that will save our world!”

  Druthel looked at Rhiannon, but he didn’t answer. His wrombarran colleague didn’t really want an answer and was already regaling him with bleary-eyed boasts about the sleepless night of work.

  “I guess, you didn’t feel like you needed any extra glory?” the colleague asked, rhetorically again. “You brought us the scientist who came up with the idea!” Druthel’s colleague folded his wings in an elaborate bow before Rhiannon. Within moments, every wrombarran in the room followed suit, and soon the humans joined in with their own custom, clapping their hands together in a cacophony of applause.

  “You will be remembered as a goddess here,” a wrombarran woman told Rhiannon. Joni translated.

  Other wrombarrans spoke up, thanking Rhiannon, congratulating her, and promising she’d be remembered forever in the depths of hyperspace. A mythical wise woman. A warrior of science. A few of Druthel’s wrombarran colleagues kept quiet—individuals who he knew had wanted to end the isolation of their planet. They would remember her always as a hellish jailer who locked their planet up and threw away the key. Thankfully, they were tactful enough to hold their tongues.

  Druthel, however, knew that he’d always remember Rhiannon as the scared little girl, hiding under his wing. As the woman who held him through the l
ongest night of his life. He realized wistfully that if the situation were different, he might be able to fall in love with her.

  Before long, a delegate from the government council arrived. As all the wrombarrans expected, their government had indeed come to a conclusion overnight: time was of the essence, and isolation was not a significant concern. Since the acoustiscope was ready—the srellicks had finished attaching it—the alien scientists would leave at sundown. The srellicks could take the humans home. And Wrombar would be pushed through the barrier into hyperspace before the sun rose tomorrow.

  “This is so fast…” Rhiannon said. If she hadn’t been standing right beside Druthel, his translator wouldn’t have picked it up. He’d turned the sensitivity down so that it wouldn’t flood him with the words of every human in the room.

  “There’s no reason to wait,” he said. “Except for us.” He looked at her softly. “But that’s not a reason.” He traced a finger along the curve of Rhiannon’s triangular jaw. He clicked his tongue and felt the smooth, flat shape of her face with sonar. Then he lowered his own face to her height and nuzzled her softly with his furry muzzle. “Thank you for saving my world.”

  He felt her smile against his fur. She whispered in his ear, and a moment later the electronic voice translated for him, “Explore hyperspace for me, okay?” Her alien voice was soft and melodic in his ear. “Maybe there’s something amazing down there. Something much more interesting than in normal space. If not…well, there will be soon.”

  Druthel wrapped his wings around her, pressing her small body against him again. The embrace was brief. They were already getting looks from the other scientists in the room. As he pulled away from her, though, Druthel said, “Promise me that you won’t stop researching. You can do too much good.”

  Rhiannon smiled thinly. She didn’t promise, but she did nod.