The Search for Gram Page 12

  “Caliph?” asked Master Chief. “Isn’t that some sort of ruler?”

  “Yes, our father rules here,” said Sella. “His name is Harun al-Rashid.”

  “Can you put in a good word for us?” asked Calvin.

  “We could...” said Sella, “but women aren’t allowed to talk in court. You’ll have to figure it out on your own. Come on, we need to go before we’re discovered. The Efreet have random patrols which come by here.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” said Master Chief, “but wherever the hell ‘here’ is, it’s a long way from anywhere with an implant network. ‘On our own’ is a good way to explain it. We’re on our own, without any hope of support.”

  Bridge, TSS Terra, In Orbit Around Keppler-22 ‘b,’ July 16, 2021

  “Any word from Lieutenant Commander Hobbs or Master Chief O’Leary?’” asked Captain Griffin.

  “No ma’am,” replied Lieutenant Watson from the main screen. “We haven’t seen or heard from either of them. I’ve been in contact with the ambassador’s staff and let them know to be on the lookout for them.”

  “Good thinking,” said Captain Griffin.

  “They also brought us dinner,” Lieutenant Canada said, “but our crew day is getting to be pretty long. We’re either going to need to come back to the ship or spend the night here.”

  “Give it another hour,” Captain Griffin said. “If we still haven’t heard from them, we’ll send down another crew to relieve you.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Lieutenant Canada replied. “We’ll keep looking.”

  Ashur, Unknown Date/Time

  “So that’s what Efreet really look like?” Calvin whispered. He looked over the edge of a small hill as two creatures marched past. Although he had seen them previously, their appearance had been an illusion. In reality, Efreet looked like giant salamanders. Seven feet tall, each walked on its hind legs and carried some sort of tube-like weapon with a hose that ran to a container on its back. They were dressed in black armor with gold trim, which covered most of their torso and legs, and shiny golden boots. Their skin was dark brown with black patches; it was hard to tell where their skin ended and the armor began.

  “Yes, that is their natural form,” said Sella. “They conquered our planet a long time ago. Although they still let us govern our world, we do so only as long as we follow their rules. If we were to do something to irritate them, we would quickly find ourselves back under military rule.”

  “What are those weapons they are carrying?” asked Master Chief.

  “They are flamecasters,” replied Trella. “They can throw balls of fire or shoot a continuous stream of fire. They are devastating as we are allowed to wear nothing more protective than these silks.” She nodded to the Efreet. “That is their patrol armor. Their combat armor covers their entire bodies and tails. Not only are they completely immune to fire when they are wearing it, they can also cover themselves in flames for a brief time.”

  “Our suits would probably have allowed us to withstand their fire,” said Calvin, “at least for a little while.”

  “They might have,” said Sella, “but there is an energy field here that would have shut down your suits’ electronics. You would have had to carry them unpowered. The Efreet would also have known someone brought unauthorized electrical equipment into the restricted zone and would have come out in force to track it down.”

  “It’s probably better we didn’t bring them then,” said Calvin.

  “Much better,” agreed Sella. She slid back, away from the hill’s crest, and the rest of the group followed her as she began walking away from the Efreeti patrol. Both Sila seemed far more serious in their home world. Calvin could understand why; being conquered would tend to do that to you.

  “Hey, sir,” said Master Chief, after a couple of minutes walking, “I’ve got a question.”

  “Yeah, Master Chief, what is it?”

  “So…we’re going to see this grand poobah person, right?”

  “That’s right,” Calvin replied, “I think Sella said he’s called the caliph.” Sella nodded her head in agreement.

  Master Chief nodded. “Okay, the caliph. And we’re going to have to talk with him because the women don’t talk in court.”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “So, we’re going to have to talk with him in his own language.”

  Calvin nodded.

  “Here in this other universe, we’re going to talk to him in his own language.”

  Calvin’s brows knitted. “Not sure what you’re getting at, Master Chief.”

  “Okay, sir, I’ll be a little more blunt. How the hell are we going to translate some language we’ve never been exposed to? We won’t have the processing power of the Terra to assist us through our implants. Our suits would be able to translate their language after they were exposed to it for a while, but we don’t have them either. And, we’re in another universe. Speech patterns may be way different here than at home. Their language may not be anything like our language. Maybe they talk with their feet. Maybe they make some sort of weird noises we can’t pronounce or mimic. What the hell are we going to do then? How are we going to talk to him? That’s what I’m getting at.”

  “Oh.” Calvin ran his palm down his face. “I see.” He took another couple of steps as he thought about it and added, “That could be a big problem.”

  “Officers,” Master Chief said shaking his head. “Where would you be without us hard-working enlisted guys?”

  “Okay, Mr. Hard-Working Enlisted Guy, do you have an idea?”

  “No, but I’d rather find out here, rather than embarrassing ourselves in front of the caliph.” He turned to Trella. “Say something in your language.”

  “Like what?” Trella asked.

  “It doesn’t much matter,” Master Chief said; “I just want to see what our implants do to translate it.”

  Trella opened her mouth and emitted a burst of ear-piercing shrieks.

  “That was your speech?” asked Calvin. “What did you say?”

  “I asked what you wanted me to say, but asked it in our language.”

  “Did you get any of it, Master Chief?” Calvin asked.

  “No, sir,” Master Chief replied. “All it sounded like to me was two cats fuc…fighting. It sounded like two cats fighting.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calvin. “I’ll have to think of something. I don’t think I can make that noise and besides, we don’t have all day to try and figure it out. They’re going to be missing us, back in our world, before too long.”

  “Sir, we disappeared without warning. They’re probably already missing us.”

  “Yeah, they probably are…” His voice trailed off. The group walked for another two minutes, and then Sella said, “We’re here.”

  “Where is ‘here?’” asked Master Chief.

  Sella pushed something inside what Calvin thought looked like a little bush, and the outline of a small trap door appeared in the ground with a ‘click.’ “This is our way to get to the castle without the Efreet seeing us.” She lifted up the trap door and led them down a ladder into a small, but well-kept, tunnel.

  Sella obviously knew the way; she passed several cross-passages without slowing. After about 10 minutes, the tunnel ended in another ladder.

  “Where are we?” asked Calvin.

  “We are underneath the castle,” said Sella. “This leads into some secret passages which run through it. Only a few of us know they exist. The castle is on a hill, so it’s a bit of a climb, and the ladder can get a little wet. Be careful going up.” She climbed up the ladder, vanishing into the darkness. After a few minutes, a spot of light appeared far overhead as she opened the trap door at the top. Trella indicated the Terrans should go next, so Calvin went up the ladder after Sella, followed by Master Chief.

  Trella checked the tunnel one more time and then climbed up the ladder. Having made the journ
ey many times, she knew where the slick places were and avoided them, emerging into a small, 10-foot square room at the top of the ladder. She replaced the trap door and the carpet which covered it, and then turned to find the other members of the group had already left. Hurrying after them down the narrow passageway, she found the group as she rounded the first corner. They were 15 feet further down the passageway, surrounded by at least eight Efreet, who were aiming flamecasters at them. Sella and the Terrans had their hands up, and the Efreeti commander was holding Sella’s control rod.

  “Stop!” Trella heard the Efreeti commander order as he saw her come around the corner. “Give me your rod!”

  “Okay,” said Trella as she bowed her head in obedience. She walked forward, head down, and held the rod out to the Efreeti with both hands as custom dictated. As he reached forward to take it, she suddenly twisted the rod, exposing several buttons. The Efreeti screamed in outrage as Trella pushed one of the buttons and vanished.

  Chapter 13

  Unknown System, Unknown Date/Time

  “Well, that’s fucked up,” said Lieutenant Mark ‘Chomper’ Melanson. “They just left them here to die?”

  “Yeah, they did,” said Lieutenant Pete ‘Rock’ Ayre. It had taken over 14 hours for their suits to decode enough of the Sila’s speech for them to be able to carry on a conversation. Normally, the suits were able to get the basics of a language in about four hours; 14 hours was a testament to how different their language was from anything in the Terrans’ home universe. The translation still wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but at least now they could get most of what they meant across. When Asp 08’s crew heard the Sila’s story, they called the crew of Asp 09 to join them in the station.

  “The Efreet appeared in this system two months ago and destroyed all the space launch and recovery systems on the planet,” confirmed Rock. “They also destroyed the spaceship that was supposed to take the Sila on the space station down to the planet. Yeah, they pretty much left them here to die.”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Lieutenant Bryan ‘Hooty’ Hooten.

  “Because they are zzzzzt-breeding zzzzzt-zzzt mother fuckers!” said the station’s commander, Major Zorr Zimba. “They enjoy inflicting cruelty on other races.”

  “Well, I see we’ve at least made some headway translating swear words,” noted Chomper with a smile. “That will help with communications.”

  “Guess what else we found out?” asked K-Mart. “When the Efreet were here, they made the Sila go aboard their ship to clean out a clogged sewage line. Who do you suppose they saw while they were onboard?”

  “A bunch of Efreet who will be dead the next time I get them in a fair fight?” asked Chomper.

  “Even better,” said K-Mart. “There were a bunch of prisoners on the Efreeti ship. That is why the sewage lines got stopped up; the ship wasn’t built to hold that many people. Prisoners with green skin and pointed ears...”

  “The Aesir!” said Chomper.

  “Yeah, and they overheard the Efreet saying they were taking the prisoners to the giants’ base on the planet,” said K-Mart.

  “We’ve got to go down and get them!” urged Chomper. “The prince may still be alive.”

  “Yeah, there’s just one problem with that,” said Rock. “The giants were in our universe, and we’re not in our universe anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Major Zimba, “one of the words didn’t translate. You are not where?”

  “We aren’t from here,” said K-Mart. “We were fighting the Efreet ship, and it did something that brought us here from where we live. We aren’t from here.”

  “Was there a flash?” asked Major Zimba.

  “Yes,” agreed Rock. “There was a flash, and all our friends disappeared.”

  “They must have made a zzzt which works for spaceships,” said one of the civilians.

  “A what?” asked K-Mart. “I’m sorry, my suit didn’t translate that.”

  “Our government has a few devices that let us transfer between worlds. We used to go to the world of the giants to spy on them,” said the same civilian. “We don’t do it anymore now that the Efreet have come. It is too dangerous. The giants are not very smart, but the Efreet are excellent spies.”

  “So, if we get you down to the planet, you can get us to the world of the giants?” asked K-Mart.

  “I can’t, but the caliph can…if you can convince him.”

  “Bringing these people back to the planet might help convince him,” K-Mart commed to the Terrans.

  “Yeah, but we need to do it before the Efreet come back,” commed Hooty. “We won’t last long against their ship if they catch us here.” Out loud he asked, “When do you expect the Efreet back?”

  “When we heard you outside, we thought you were the Efreet coming back,” said Major Zimba. “Our food ran out two days ago; we were hoping to lure them into the station and let the air out. We don’t mind dying if we can take some of them with us.”

  “So, you don’t have any way to get back to the planet?” asked Hooty.

  “No, we do not,” said Major Zimba.

  “How many are there of you?”

  “Eight.”

  Hooty looked at the rest of the Terrans. “How are we going to get them down?”

  Chomper raised an eyebrow. “Very carefully?”

  “Seriously,” said Hooty. “In order to get them all down, we’d have to put four into each fighter. There isn’t enough room for five people to fit on the WSO’s side of the fighter, and I can’t fly the damn thing with someone sitting on my lap. It wouldn’t be a problem if we had enough fuel to make a few trips, but I don’t think we have enough fuel to get my fighter back out of the gravity well once I take it down to the planet. Is yours any better off?”

  “No, it’s not,” said Rock. “Still, we can’t leave them here to die. We’ll have to work something out.”

  “If it will get the civilians back to the planet,” said Zimba, “Zzzzt Gorba and I will stay behind.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” said K-Mart, “but we’re going to get everyone down. I’ve got an idea. It will take a while to put everything we need together, but I think it will work.”

  Shuttle 02, Keppler-22 ‘b,’ July 16, 2021

  “Did you see that?” asked Lieutenant Tobias ‘Toby’ Eppler.

  “Huh? See what?” asked his pilot, Lieutenant Phil ‘Oscar’ Meyer, from where he slouched in his seat. Like most people in the military, he could fall asleep at a moment’s notice, regardless of his surroundings, and the waiting had been anything but exciting.

  “The pyramid to the left,” replied Toby. “A woman materialized about 10 feet above it and then fell down onto the side of it.” He pointed. “Right there.” Before Oscar could find her, she disappeared from Toby’s sight. “Dammit, she’s gone again.”

  “What did she look like?” asked Oscar.

  “Hard to tell because I only got a quick look at her,” said Toby, “but she kind of looked like something out of the movies…a belly dancer or harem girl…something like that.”

  “Well, I don’t see her now.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” Toby switched to his radio. “Vella Gulf, Shuttle 02. Interrogative, what did the Jinn who were with Lieutenant Commander Hobbs look like?”

  “Stand by,” replied the communications officer on the Vella Gulf. “The CO says they are short, pretty women. One is blond, the other has dark hair. Usually, they dress like the natives, but she has also seen them dressed in silks like Middle Eastern belly dancers.”

  “Roger that,” replied Toby. “I think I just saw one of them materialize over one of the pyramids. She fell onto it but then disappeared.”

  “Copy all. The CO says to keep an eye out for her.”

  “Wilco. We’ll keep an eye out.”

  “How do you look for someone who can go invisible?” asked Oscar.

  “Beats me,” Toby replied. “Look out the window and see if she reappears; I’ll try searchi
ng on the infrared scanner.”

  “Maybe one of us should go outside,” said Oscar after a couple minutes of fruitless searching. “We can’t see very much out of the window, and she might have been hurt in the fall.”

  “If you are looking for me, that won’t be necessary,” said a feminine voice from behind the aviators. They turned to find a short woman at the back of the cockpit. Her long dark hair framed a delicate face with brilliant blue eyes. “I’m Trella, and I’m afraid your friends need help.”

  Ashur, Unknown Date/Time

  The Efreeti commander motioned along the corridor. He barked out an order in a deep, raspy voice, but the translation software in the Terrans’ implants couldn’t translate it. “What did he say?” asked Calvin.

  Without warning, the Efreeti standing behind Calvin slammed the tube of his flamecaster into Calvin’s head, knocking him to the floor. The metal was much denser than it appeared; Calvin saw stars and nearly lost consciousness. The Efreeti commander said something else.

  Sella helped Calvin to his feet. “He said to move,” she said. “He also said, ‘no talking.’”

  The group headed down the passageway single file. It was so narrow in places the Terrans had to turn sideways to get through. As they walked, they heard voices on the other side of the wall and noticed peepholes which allowed them to see into the rooms on the other side. After a couple of minutes, they came to an open door and walked into the castle’s throne room. Eight more Efreet were waiting there, pointing their weapons in the general direction of two male Sila. Though woozy from the blow to the head, Calvin guessed the larger of the two was the caliph. His robes were stunning, and he wore what looked like jewelry made from black metal all over his body. The second Jinn was taller and thinner, and he was dressed more plainly. Sella ran to hug the larger male, confirming Calvin’s guess.

  The Efreet soldiers prodded the Terrans into a group with the male Sila.

  Calvin felt something running down his face. He reached up to see what it was, and his hand came away bloody.