Aurona, page 39
“Wow, a coastal tomb, huh? Did it have infrared lines, too? Maps can’t fully function as maps without directions, can they?”
Duron smiled. “I am afraid no one knows how to control their internal power sources anymore.” At Adam’s disappointed look he suddenly brightened. A slender finger rose in the air. “Except for, ah, maybe…,” he mused. “No, no.”
“Who? Adam prompted. “Someone still might have some answers?”
He looked distracted. “I am sorry, Adam. Could we talk about her later?”
“It’s a her? Her who? Ah, is this Roson again?”
“Yes, yes, it is the old woman. But listen, it is really getting late. I am afraid I must change the subject and come directly to the real reason for my visit.”
He shrugged in resignation. “Shoot.” As a wispy brow rose, he fumbled, trying to amend his one-liner. “Oh. I-I meant, ah, dish it out, um, fill me in, ah….”
Both brows flew up. “Your idioms and word pictures are extraordinary,” Duron slit-smiled. “Now. It is indeed getting quite late and I must come directly to the point.” The timbre of is voice changed, taking on a restrained exuberance, enticingly mysterious. “It is time, Adam! Please get ready, because darkness is approaching.”
“Huh?” He groped excitedly for his clothes. “Whassup?”
The odd slit-smile stretched a bit wider. “You! You will be up, for one! The elders are waiting for us on top of the Motherlode!”
“What? On top of the…? What’s it time for? What are you…?”
“Do not be nervous,” he interrupted, gently. “You are ready, your body is relaxed, and your youthful mind is supple. It is time to take of the mind-fruit! The Rasheen! You have wanted to, haven’t you?”
“Hey, I-I don’t know about this, Duron! Only a lick, the tiniest taste, knocked me out, remember?”
The thin ribs heaved with a shallow sigh of exasperation. “All I can say is that you will never realize your true potential if you do not at least try.”
“Well,” he hedged, “I-I don’t….”
“We have to prepare the mixture freshly, then it has to be ingested quickly because it spoils immediately. Only we elders have the full knowledge of this precise preparation; only with our methods can one reduce overt bodily distresses.”
“Dis-distresses?” he paused freeze-frame, his arm halfway up a sleeve.
“Ah, there is a degree of discomfort involved,” he hedged, “but it does go away quickly.” As his voice trailed off, his dark eyes locked with Adam’s own. “You simply cannot refuse us, Adam. We have never experienced anything near your potential of mind-power. Why, you surpass us all in your extensive base of knowledge and reasoning capacity! Telepathically you have already exceeded the skill level of our most advanced students, and they have been eating of the Rasheen for centuries! We simply cannot believe that you have already achieved this incredible level of awareness after only the smallest of tastes!”
“You mean I’m gonna be your guinea pig?”
Again, the big head tilted. “Guinea pig, Adam? What is…?”
“Test case, Duron, test case.”
He sighed. “We merely wish to unleash the boundless reserves of your mind.”
“I won’t get hurt? I-I’ve got Elena and my crew to look after.”
The old one lowered his voice, leaning toward him like a trusted confidant. “Your integrity is admirable. Listen closely now and trust me completely, my friend. Your eyes will truly be opened, your powers of observation and deductive reasoning will flower, your wisdom and discretion will grow exponentially, and your authority will stand unquestioned through the ages.”
Adam switched to a quick Stooges imitation. “Hey! A wise guy, huh?”
His timing was perfect. Duron’s great, mushroom shaped head tipped back and he let out a totally uncharacteristic whoop. “Adam, you are a total delight! Come, teach us your ways!”
Darkness was approaching. Shivering in the rising wind, Adam peered down into the distance through a notch in one of the Motherlode’s leathery saw-toothed leaves. The low lights under the hull of the starship revealed some antlike figures joining a gathering throng. They looked like specks of dust under the edge of the immense saucer. “We’re being watched,” he growled. “Look! They’re pointing at me!”
The old one shrugged. “It is only natural, Adam. You are their leader and we made no secret of our departure. But we are very high and they are at the foot of this tree. Therefore, their angle is not right to see over the top of this big leaf.”
Adam scowled, then sighed resignedly. “I still don’t like it.” He peered through the notch in the leaf again, balancing on his knees. This, ah, ‘thing’ has got to be done in total privacy.”
A murmur rose behind him. The other elders were starting to lose their patience. “Why, Adam?” Duron questioned again, speaking for the twelve. “This-this is an honorable ritual….”
“Why?” He spun around. “Because of people like Dexor, that’s why! They’d completely run away with it! If he or his pals ever ate of the Rasheen, it’d be curtains!”
All the dark eyes closed, concentrating. “Curtains … ah, yes!” Duron murmured. “I think I am finally starting to see into your word-pictures! Alternatively speaking, you feel that if he were watching he would try to imitate our actions to gain power for himself, then it would be the end of your mission. Ah, let us see now … Zap City?”
A bright smile broke through Adam’s scowl. “Hey, right on! I don’t know where you got that from, Duron, but you nailed it! The mission would definitely be a washout! We’d be the underdogs in a lose-lose situation. And what would happen if our, um, activities ‘leak’ to Dexor’s kind by some kind of unavoidable ah, shall we say, ‘accident’? You know the old saying: ‘Loose lips sink ships’?”
They’d totally lost him. The seniors were solemnly tapping and retapping their translator buttons, their dark eyes rolling at each other in confusion. Up to now they’d been listening respectfully, seated in a perfect circle in their immaculate, gold-trimmed robes and doing their best to keep up with Adam’s breezy jargon. Duron glanced over his shoulder. “We-we do instinctively feel your wisdom … I guess….”
Adam joined the circle and let out a sigh. Looking pointedly at the other elders, he bobbed his head. In a chain reaction, twelve bald heads bobbed in a wave passing around the circle. As the crest surged back toward Adam, he did his level best to stifle his smile and put on his best ‘sage’ look. Nodding solemnly, profoundly, he bobbed his head in perfect synchronization. They were duly impressed.
“You shall have your privacy,” Duron beamed. “Now please move into the center of the circle at once.” Adam awkwardly scootched over the bumpy surface on his butt. Without another word, the elders turned their palms upward in their laps, tipped their heads back, and closed their eyes in deep concentration. The chattering and squawking of the animals fell to an eerie silence. Soon only sound of the rising wind remained.
There was a sizzle, followed by a loud crack. Something like a brightly lit fuse snapped to life behind Duron’s elbow and started to move. Adam faced rigidly ahead, but his eyes warily watched the hissing point of light. Glittering clouds of vapor started to stream in from all directions to condense inside the invisible boundaries of the powerful, moving static charge. He blinked in disbelief. What was this? A visible shape was beginning to form, looking like a hard, curving wall? Like a potter’s rope of clay, the gold vapor followed the energy field, building upward layer upon layer and constructing a shell of pure gold. It spiraled faster, gathering speed as it arched inward over their heads toward a central point. He braced himself. Suddenly, with a pop and blinding flash, it closed!
He rubbed his eyes. They were inside a gold igloo! Only he, the silent circle of elders, and a round disc of tough, green Motherlode leaf remained.
The jungle was getting darker by the minute. Squeezed together on a two-man SpeedSled, three impatient figures jostled awkwardly for room.
“Ouch! Hey! Watch where you put your foot, birdbrain!”
“That ain’t a foot! It’s a tripod!”
“Shut up, you boobs!” With a string of curses, Dexor lowered his nightscope into his lap. “Crud! Show’s over!” he hissed. “The melon-heads have this round! We’ll never get to see what Miss Smarty-pants is up to!” He threw up his hands in disgust.
Trennic cupped his hand over his wrist communicator to check a readout. There was a faint, momentary flash of blue.
“Douse that light, you idiot!” Dexor hissed.
“Ah, we gotta go real quick, Dex. Kron’s PIL signal just entered my two hundred-yard radius, and it’s speeding in this direction. He’s in a big hurry.”
Senn lifted his nightscope to his eyes once more. “Wow! What’s that thing they’re in? It looks like a-a gold pimple!”
“Don’t you know a force field when you see one?” Dexor hissed. In silent fury, he cloaked their SpeedSled. The blue light flickered out and the trio disappeared.
Inside the metallic blister, once-familiar sounds were now reverberating strangely. With an amplified, starched-sounding rustle, Adam watched Duron reach under the folds of his cloak to carefully bring out a small golden chalice. “Nectar,” he explained, simply. As he uncapped it, a strange, prolonged ringing started, like a high-pitched tuning fork. He flipped the cup’s lid over to reveal a gleaming, slightly concave bowl of what looked like pure, shimmering energy. The ringing grew louder.
An elder carved off a miniscule section of freshly picked Rasheen and placed it on the vibrating lid. Nodding to each other, they reached ominously beneath their cloaks.
“We are ready,” Duron breathed. “You must be restrained now.”
Adam drew back, alarmed. “Huh? What gives? What are you guys…?”
“I am sorry,” he interrupted, “but it must be done. You might hurt yourself in the ensuing struggle.”
Adam stood up stiffly in the center of the dome, sighed, and dropped his arms resignedly to his sides. As if on signal, they surged inward to tie him up with seemingly endless loops of silken cords. After testing the bonds countless times, they stuffed his mummy-wrapped body into a white, quilted sack and laid him on his side.
Nodding in satisfaction, they returned solemnly to their seated positions. A soft, dirgelike chant began. Adam wriggled forlornly, casting a suspicious eye at the circle of bobbing heads. A strange vocalization rose, the beat reverberating with an incessant thrum inside the golden dome. Suddenly, from somewhere deep within their thin bodies, they broke out with loud, quavering wails, their wet tongues sticking out, their domed heads bobbing and dancing in the rhythm. Try as he might, he couldn’t block out the awful sound. It worsened by the second, escalating steeply upward to an almost deafening level. His left and right ears were ringing way out of sync and the pain was becoming unbearable. Suddenly, the Elders diverged sharply into a cacophonous clash of upper registers. Overwhelmed, he yelled out at the top of his lungs into the discordant assembly.
“Stop! Stop!! Stop!!”
There was an immediate, shocked silence. Hanging suspended in the air, only the fading echoes of his voice remained. Ever so slowly, they closed their gaping slit-mouths and turned toward him. His heart was hammering. He stared back helplessly, suddenly wanting to disappear. With only his head sticking out, he felt like a fat, oval cocoon: he was the prey and they were the predators.
He grimaced awkwardly, his voice squeaking. “I-I feel like … dinner!”
They spun toward each other, their thin hands flying up over their mouths. After a fleeting moment of uncertainty, one of the elders let out a muffled snark. Hope glimmered in Adam’s eyes. He craned his neck to see who it was. Another one picked up on the snicker, then another. Soon they were all elbowing and whacking each other on their backs, roaring at his one-liner. He breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, they’d finally seen the humor in his predicament.
Reluctantly, Duron raised his hands to call a halt. “Silence, please! I am sorry, Adam, but we must hurry now! The Rasheen lives only a few more minutes!”
Swiftly, he pressed a hidden button on the chalice. The small wedge of fruit started to spin, rapidly becoming a blur. He blinked: apparently, strong magnetic fields were emanating from somewhere within the lid, making the slice of Rasheen disintegrate instantly into a liquid. It roiled upward like a living cloud of contained plasma, shaped itself into a vertical column and then coalesced, dripping into a shallow, fizzing pool.
“Okay, this is it!” The old one leaned over urgently and held it under his nose. “When I combine this fragile liquid with the nectar in the chalice, drink the mixture very fast without stopping! Are you ready, Adam?”
Steeling himself, he nodded. The old one mixed feverishly and poured the mysterious potion down his throat.
As he swallowed the fiery liquid in convulsive spasms, his pupils constricted to tiny pinpoints. The world shrank and the crouching, anxious Bandors disappeared into a blank canvas of white.
Suddenly, he felt it deep in his body. Running in molten-hot rivers, the burning invader swiftly commandeered his nervous system and paralyzed his diaphragm. He began to struggle mightily. A terrifying, crippling pressure grabbed his chest, squeezing the last, reluctant breath from his lungs in a great gasp. His mouth gaped open. No air! In total panic, he thrashed around with his head. After several minutes it hit him. How could this be? He was still alive! Although he knew he wasn’t breathing, he reasoned that the mysterious elixir must be super oxygenated and supplying his respiratory needs. He blinked hard, trying to see. Fading now, everything was fading. As his heart raced oddly in his chest, he lost consciousness.
His supple young arteries ballooned under a sudden, tremendous pressure, forcing the relentless, seeping invader through every thin capillary wall. As he slept, it penetrated swiftly, deeply into the very nucleus of his cells, unraveling and subtly altering the tightly woven structure of his genetic code. His mind, body, and very fabric of being started to transform. For the first time since the moment of his conception and birth, the sluggish, sleeping stem cells in his brain unfurled and awakened to an unprecedented spurt of new growth. The neurogenesis spread rapidly outward from his hypothalamus. Indeed, like a pupa encapsulated in a chrysalis, he was changing. Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl.
Bright, warm light shone redly through his eyelids. Adam shuddered and tried to move. His hands felt stiff. Forcing his clenched fists open, he stretched out weakly from a cramped fetal position, then with concerted effort opened his heavy lids to thin slits. He was alive! Flying animals and insects came into focus, lots of them, flitting about and hovering like great moths charmed to a flame. Beyond the blinding column of light over his head, there was nothing but pitch blackness. The silken bonds and mummy-sack were gone.
He blinked, uncomprehending. The top of his golden dome was gone, too, leaving a circular wall around him six feet high and twenty feet and diameter. As he struggled to sit, a thin blanket slid from his shoulders. He could only watch it fall; his helpless arms were too leaden to move. Well, it was a good thing they’d left the wall around him—he was totally naked now. Evidently, they respected the concept of modesty.
Suddenly, he felt alarming, snuffling movements on his hand. He jerked it away and turned to see. Perched on top of a strange-looking, colorful, yet neatly folded pile of clothing was a spotted ball of fluff. The creature watched his unsteady movements with intent, beady eyes. He whispered hoarsely, tentatively.
“F-Fandango? Is that you?”
Two ears shot up.
“Come over here, boy!” As he clapped his strangely stinging hands, Elena’s favorite pet bounced eagerly toward him, wriggling and licking in ecstasy. He reached out and picked him up, astonished at the creature’s seemingly complete acceptance. “Wow! You weigh almost nothing, don’t you, boy?” Intensely curious, he parted the crinkled, wispy fur on the creature’s back, turning the docile piece of fluff over and over to look for some kind of body structure. “Hey, what are you made of, air?”
“Adam!”
Suddenly, runic letters blazed to life in his mind, clearly outlined. “D-Duron?” He broke into a grin, looking around for his friend.
“Up here, Adam!”
Astonished, he turned his face skyward. His eyes ached as he attempted to squint into the dancing, scintillating brilliance of golden flakes.
“The creature in your hands is a Spotted WindRider! Throw him into the air!”
He beamed a runic reply. “Duron? Where are you?” He held Fandango at arm’s length, studying him. “Of course,” he whispered, “what else could you be, fella?”
The mind-voice came back. “Adam! Set the creature free, then get into your WingSuit and follow him! We are all waiting up here!”
He squeezed his eyes shut, yelling at no one in particular. “Stop! This is too much! How do you expect me to believe…?”
Duron’s mind-message interrupted his tirade, calming him. “You had better get dressed, Adam. The powerful wind-current lasts only one more hour. If you wish to complete your initiation ceremony, you must join us at once!”
He groaned, shielding his eyes and squinting through the thick swarm of soaring creatures over his head. The light was way too intense. He gave up quickly and struggled to his feet, muttering to himself.
“C’mon now, this is too much! What did he just say, a-a WingSuit?” He bent over to pick up the strange, folded garment, then shook it out to study it. “Now this is what I call weird!”
Making a face, he slipped into the colorful apparel and flexed the elaborately scalloped, stiff-ribbed wings radiating from his armpits. “Wings? Now, really….” Fandango waited patiently at his feet as he snugly cinched the integral antigrav harness. A stiff, hollow tube, something like a channel, was running up his back. He pivoted on his heels to see it, his arms in the air. Like the wings of a bat, a supple elastic web stretched from his ankles to his wrists. Even the gloves on his hands were webbed in a similar fashion. “Rudders,” he surmised, shrugging. His legs felt like they were tethered. Sighing, he looked down at his feet in exasperation. Another section fanned out between his legs as he spread them. “And a tail! Of course! I need a tail!” He shook his head and stooped to pick up Fandango. “What a goofy rig this is, right down to these dumb epaulets on my shoulders! What are they for? I feel like-like some kind of superhero cartoon character! Well, time to go, boy! Bon voyage!” With one arm, he tossed Fandango high into the air.
