Pictoria (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 4)

Chapter 6

THEY WERE ALL panting by the time they made it back to the space shuttle. Although it was cutting it a bit close to the hurricane force winds, Six decided to take the ship back up into space. They had the trimorphs, and, by all accounts, the visitor was a very long way away from Pictoria right now. There was no reason to spend a very uncomfortable night on the surface of the planet listening to the wind buffeting the shuttle.

The shuttle lifted smoothly away from the planet, and then started to shake as it traversed the pressures already building up in the higher troposphere and stratosphere, before freeing itself of the remains of the Pictorian atmosphere, and docking safely in the Independence, in the mesosphere.

They made their way out of the air lock, where they found Arcan waiting for them. He darkened as he saw that they had brought back the trimorphs, but then seemed to freeze as he was able to communicate with them, and realized that these were the trimorph equivalent of himself. He turned first black and then iridescent as he listened attentively to the account which the small beings were clearly giving him.

"The visitor has been transported somehow to Dessia!" His voice thundered in their heads, and they all tried to cover their ears with their hands; a particularly useless move since Arcan spoke to them by other means than sound waves.

"Yes, Arcan, but please don't shout. It hurts us!" Grace told him.

The orthogel entity shimmered apologetically. "I am sorry. I didn't realize. What are we going to do? How can we get the visitor back? How did the Dessites find him? How did they get him to transport back to Dessia? How long has he been there?"

The trimorphs situated themselves in front of Arcan. "He would have been very excited at being finally mobile. He must have been transmitting that to the Dessites in some way, as well. Of course, the old visitor couldn't have transported anywhere, but this visitor bimorph can. He may not have known how to dominate his abilities, and somehow they seem to have managed to pull him out of this world, and get him to decohere in Dessia."

"Then we will have to go and get him back. Is there anything you two can do?"

The trimorphs shimmered. "We only have a tiny part of the Arcan brain. You can't expect us to solve all the problems. Why ... we only have the same amount of brain as ... as ... as Six here!"

Six stiffened. "Here! Be careful what you are saying, microbe! I'll have you know that my brain is perfectly capable."

Arcan scintillated. "You keep telling me that, Six, but I can't say I have seen much evidence. Of course, you do very well for a transient."

Diva grinned and turned to the trimorphs. "I feel for you," she told them. "To have to exist with only the same amount of brain as Six! Imagine!"

"At least my few neurons were able to pass the quantum mechanics exam, my lady, if I remember correctly," snapped Six. "Not like some."

"Poof! I can hardly remember that far back. Anyway it is very uncouth of you to point it out."

"Well, since I was never brought up to be couth, that can hardly surprise you, can it? I mean, it was not exactly a priority in the uninhabitable zone. No doubt couthness was absolutely essential when wallowing around in gold-plated bathtubs filled by vats of wine."

"We do other things on Coriolis, you know."

"Sure. Throw people into pits with wild animals, or have them encased alive in rexelene blocks. Very couth."

"That word doesn't even exist, and neither does couthness!"

"Does too!"

"Does not!"