Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (74 page)

The nose of the shuttle had dipped horrendously, the net had begun to swing in towards the mole of rock behind them. Diva must have been struggling to bring the small craft back under control.

Six stared at the huge columns which were racing to meet him. “Come ON, Diva!” he shouted. “Now!
Now
! NOW!”

The shuttle caught a downdraft of air and the trajectory suddenly altered, throwing them further down, bringing the rock face even nearer. Six’s heart gave a huge leap of panic, and the beat faltered. The rock face was hurtling out at him, closer, closer, CLOSER!

Then there was a huge jerk on the net, which left him gasping for breath. The rock stopped moving towards him, hung there in a menacing sort of fashion for what seemed like an eternity, and then another massive tilt pulled him away from it, and up. The roar of the engines was deafening, and the turbulence from them caused hurricane-force eddies around their position.

Six gave a whoop, and raised a triumphant fist, looking over at Ledin. But Ledin had his eyes closed. He was still trying to control his brain, which was in an uproar.

“WAY TO GO, Diva!” Six shouted.

The rock face was slipping downwards past them now, and Six was actually beginning to enjoy the ride.

“Ledin! LEDIN! Look!” Six tried to shout over the sound of the shuttle. Ledin opened his eyes – cautiously at first, and then with more confidence as he realized that the rock was sliding past them in a downwards direction instead of the other way round. He breathed a sigh of relief, and his heart began to beat again, which made him feel rather better.

“Left it a bit late, didn’t she?” he said, in the aggrieved tone of one who had seen his last moments face to face.

Six put back his head, and laughed out loud. “Always does things in her own good time!” Then he sobered up. “Though she isn’t going to be best pleased at this.”

Some minutes later Ledin pointed down. “Look! We have made it!”

Sure enough, they were just crossing the top of the cliff, and the ground was now only a few metres below them. They both started to whoop, and wave their arms.

Diva positioned the shuttle as close as she could to the ground, but the exhaust from the engines was being thrust back at them now that they were over rock, and the heat was overpowering.

“TILT THE ENGINES!” shouted Six in a desperate thought. As if Diva had heard, he felt the net incline, until they were being tipped out of it.

They both grabbed hold of one or two of the meshes in the net, and fumbled to make sure the machines and box were still tied securely.

Six made frantic signals to the shuttle. “GO UP! GO UP! We’re being burnt to a frazzle down here.”

Then the net flopped wrong-side-out of its rigid frame, falling down towards the ground, taking its two passengers with it. Six was conscious of a huge wave of heat burning his lungs. He tried opened his hand to let go of the mesh, hitting the ground with such a crunch that he felt his head snap back against a rock. That was the last thing he knew for several minutes.

WHEN LEDIN CAME to, he found he was lying slumped on one of the hexagonal stepping stones. His brain throbbed for a moment, and then he realized where he was.

“Six?”

He heard a slight moan in reply. Six was lying some twenty metres to his left.

Ledin staggered to his feet and pulled himself up over several rocks until he reached his friend, then stopped in dismay. Six had caught his head on one of the columns, not having fallen as cleanly as Ledin had himself. The stone edge had clipped him, and he was lying unmoving on the surface of the stepping stone, one half in a small pool of water which had accumulated on the top of it.

Ledin checked as best he could that Six hadn’t damaged his spine, and then pulled him carefully clear of the ledge. He was considering what to do next when his friend gave a couple of gasps, made a retching noise, and then opened his eyes.

“Wha ... what happened?” he asked in a woozy tone.

“Diva nearly cooked us, and you hit your head as you fell.”

Six pulled a face as he tried to sit up. “Ouch! Oh, yes. I remember now. It’s all right; I don’t think I have broken anything.” He stared around him at the stone forest of hexagonal columns all around them. “Diva?”

“She must have headed back to the New Independence. She couldn’t have landed here. We had better start getting back. Can you stand up?”

“Well, of course I can. What do you think I am, a Cesan housewife? ... OH!” The last comment was when Six tried to stand up. A big black thundercloud seemed to settle between his shoulders, pushing him towards the floor and causing him to double over. “Oh!”

Ledin grabbed Six’s arm. “Take it easy!”

Six sighed. “I AM a Cesan housewife,” he said sadly, teetering somewhat.

“Here, put your arm around my shoulder. I will help you.”

They must have been about a quarter of the way to the shuttle, when they caught sight of a slim figure springing towards them, navigating the stepping stones confidently. Ledin smiled. Grace would make things much easier.

Grace gave her husband a tight hug, and then turned to pick up the machines and the box. “I don’t know what the two of you just did,” she told them, “but Diva was on the screen a moment ago, almost incoherent with rage.”

Six and Ledin looked at each other. Six managed a weak grin. “It might have been better if I
had
knocked myself unconscious,” he said.

With Grace in charge of the lasers and the box, and Six beginning to recover, they were able to move more quickly across the mosaic ground of Pyraklion. The last half hour was in darkness, but luckily Grace had left a beacon shining upwards from the shuttle, so it was relatively easy to find their way back.

When they reached the pod, they manoeuvred Six as carefully as they could inside, and then Grace leapt for the controls. The sooner she got them up to the trader, the better.

DIVA’S FACE WAS like thunder as they opened the hatch after docking on the New Independence.

“How DARE you pull that trick on me, Six! You could have been killed! What were you thinking?”

“It was an awful long way up.”

She looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “SO? It would have been a safe climb!”

“Huh! Shows how much you know. We nearly got knocked off that cliff face by a meteor on the way down.”

“And you thought it would be safer to leap off a cliff into a net in front of a shuttle!”

He looked piqued. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Her jaw dropped, and then her face took on a hard, tight expression. “It only worked, you Kwaidian blockhead, because I happen to be a very good pilot!”

“Knew you could do it. Told Ledin so.”

Ledin started at his own name, and then looked guarded. “I ... err ... think I should go and check the—”

“Oh no you don’t! Don’t you even think of oozling out of this, Ledin! I am going to get Grace in here.”

Ledin’s face was a study. “Grace? Do you have to? I was only following him,” he said, pointing a hand in Six’s direction, causing his friend to respond with a reproachful look, and mutter something about stabbing and backs.

“I know very well who was following who! But you don’t have to throw yourself off a cliff just because Six tells you to, do you?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes went slitty. “What do you mean, ‘yes’?”

Ledin shuffled his feet. “It’s one of those Kwaidian things.”

“So if I told you to jump out of this shuttle without a mask pack, you would do it?”

Ledin looked uncomfortable. “I
might
,” he said slowly.

“Oh, terrific. You wouldn’t do it if
I
tell you to risk your life, but you didn’t hesitate when Six did?”

Ledin looked evasive. “Didn’t really think about it much ... at the time.”

Diva shook her head. “You Kwaidians have about as much sense as a pair of Coriolan monkeys!”

Six gave one of his grins. “As much as that?”

Ledin thought he could see steam coming off the top of her head. “We are very sorry,” he said, lowering his gaze.

“Very sorry, indeed,” agreed Six hastily, attempting to look penitent. “We won’t do it again.”

Unfortunately, they couldn’t help grinning at each other with complicity, which ruined the effect.

Diva noticed. “You aren’t at all sorry!”

“Well, why should we be? It worked, didn’t it?”

“It wor—” She broke off, a crinkle of complete disbelief in her eyes and on her forehead. “You have got to be joking!”

“No. It did work. Why should we feel bad about it? And I don’t see why you are getting upset. After all, you are the one who piloted the shuttle so well. You should be pleased.”

She shook her head, as if to try to clear it. It didn’t seem to have much effect, because she frowned again. Then her brow lightened. “I know what it is. It is because of the Elders of Kwaide. They are the ones to blame. You no-names must have got used to risking your lives every day. You probably miss it.”

Six looked pleased. “Good. It was no big deal. Now will you stop doing that imitation of the matron of the birth shelter? It makes a chill run all the way up and down my spine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He nodded. “Well, I appreciate that, I must say, because after all the whole thing went off very well, and we all got back in one piece ...”

“I wasn’t apologizing!”

“Weren’t you? Only I do think you have been going on and on about it rather a lot. I bet you would have done the same thing if you had been there!”

“Of course I wouldn’t! You’d need to be three brains short of a loaf to do a dumb thing like that!”

“Well, I don’t agree. Now, be a good girl, and get me a couple of pieces of fruit, will you?”

The gasp of outrage could be heard on the other side of the bridge. “WHAT?”

Six grinned at Ledin. “Knew that would get her,” he confided. “Couldn’t resist it.” Then he was forced to duck as an overripe peach impacted with some force on the metal panel overhead. “Lucky she has always had such a lousy aim, isn’t it? Strange; that girl could put a shuttle through the needle rock on Xiantha, but she can’t hit a fully-grown Kwaidian at ten paces.”

Diva made a deep growling sound in her throat, and Six looked gratified.

“Well,” he said. “Thank you. Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch, but I really think it is time to get ourselves up to the meeting point. Arcan will be along to pick us up soon. We don’t want to miss the rendezvous.”

BY THE NEXT day, Six was feeling much better. His head still ached, but he had slept for nearly twenty hours, and it seemed as if a visit to Vion 49 would not be necessary.

“Because of your thick skull,” Diva told him severely.

“I know. One of the better points of Kwaidian anatomy!” said Six. “You see – we do have good qualities!”

Diva raised her eyes towards the sky and muttered something.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That mutter of yours. You know.”

She sighed. “You are the only person I know who might think that a thick skull was something good to have.”

“Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Who would want a thin one? It might break at any moment, and then where would you be?”

“Any other Kwaidian traits you think are invaluable?”

He stiffened. “Of course. We are stubborn and —”

Diva muttered something relating to pigs and heads.

He ignored this. “We have more fat under our skins, so that we can retain heat longer in cold weather—”

Diva made a comment about whales and blubber, which appeared to go right over his head.

“—and we have more stamina than any other race in the binary system.”

There was no way Diva was letting that pass. “More stamina?”