The small light on the Antyran system map had been blinking for quite some time, but Omal 13 had no eyes for it. In fact, he didn’t have eyes for anything, given that he lay, collapsed, in his muddy vat, trembling violently, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. His green, scaly hammies were making countless ripples while his moans of pleasure echoed in the room, leaving no doubt about what was happening. The ambassador was slipping into hibernation…
The door opened widely, and another Rigulian carried by a large vat rushed inside.
“Oma—hey! What’s going on?” he exclaimed, surprised. At a glance, he understood the situation. “He did it. He really did it,” the Rigulian muttered, stupefied by the ambassador’s oblivion, shaking his head incredulously. “Rico 3, bring the regression hormones,” he shouted to the Corbelian sphere following him.
Another Rigulian, at least twice as tall as Omal 13, stormed into the room, shouting from the doorstep, “He did it, right?”
“What are you so happy for?” barked the first alien, seeing his broad grin. “Do you realize the situation he has put us in?”
“Err… I made a bet,” he burst out. “With Laola 27 from the farm. I told her he couldn’t hold out until we leave!”
His laughter froze when he saw the other one’s frowning face.
“Rico 3, you never follow the protocols. Look how you present yourself in front of the medir.96 I’m not pleased with you at all! You sure you aren’t sclerotic yet? It wouldn’t hurt if you paid a visit to the evaluation room. Maybe it’s time for you to take your rejuvenating serum.”
Rico 3 threw him an offended look, but he didn’t dare to confront him, reading in his eyes that it wouldn’t work this time. Therefore, he bowed his head in an attempt to look remorseful, mumbling, “I don’t think I’m sclerotic. I mean, I’ll be the first one to find out, don’t you think?”
“Then you’d rather have a report that will get you fifty years on a roadworker planet to handle the sarken irrigations?
“All right, all right—I’ll go later,” he groaned. “Now, what do you want from me, Medir Egar 9?”
“Give him the serum,” Egar 9 ordered.
“Hmm, isn’t it too late for that? We risk provoking the barra syndrome. How long has he been like this?”
“Last evening he was all right. Give him the implant,” he ordered.
Rico looked at him, undecided.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”
“The sarken probes sent the results, and we have the distorter’s coordinates. He has to make a decision!”
“Shouldn’t we ask Sirtam 4 what to do?”
Egar sighed, annoyed by Rico’s excessive caution. Still, he had no reason to be angry; after all, if he had to choose a word to best describe the Rigulian species, it would be “lacking initiative.” Well, two words…
He could have given a direct order, but what was the point of forcing Rico’s hand? Rico was right—better let Sirtam make the decision.
He floated beside Omal’s table and touched its controls.
“I’ll move him to a habitacle in the prehibernation tanks to make sure his skin doesn’t fuse with his vat,” said Rico.
“Wait until I speak to Sirtam.”
***
The Grammian ship reached Antyra’s outskirts without notable mishaps—maybe because Gill had stopped eating near the navigation table—and, obviously, he now had to prepare for the fun part. There was the little detail of contacting the Rigulians right under the nostrils of the Grammians… Grammians who wouldn’t appreciate the capture of one of their ships and would do anything to “host” him in their sinister neural probes.
Then there was Grammia’s unknown relation with the Federation. If, as Ugo estimated, they had known each other for over a thousand years, there was undoubtedly the unpleasant possibility that the Grammian ships could fly among the Rigulians, and he’d land straight in the claws of the enemy. Be that as it may, he thought. If the chance to fight for Sigia appeared again, he had no intention of turning his tail like a coward. Moreover, someone had to alert the Rigulians that their potential “allies” were behind the bright idea to hide Antyra in the darkness of space for 1,250 years. Surely the news would be of interest, to say the least.
He did a rough estimate on the navigation map of where the Rigulian fleet might be, supposing that Baila “invited” them to the opposite side of Antyra III when he attacked it. The prophet most likely thought to place the Antyran star between them and the temple transports that assaulted Ropolis to hide his atrocities from the eyes of the aliens. Of course, in the meantime, Antyra III had changed its position, and he had no clue how to use the Grammian cockpits to find the exact coordinates.
He picked the place on the navigation table, hoping that the ship’s automatic devices were advanced enough to find the ships for him and put them on the main display.
Gill never thought he would feel it, but in a way, he regretted the absence of the abomination. He could have used the jure to drive the ship through any blockade. Why did Ugo have to be such a hopelessly mad case, beyond all hope of redemption?
One thing he had to do was to make a battle plan for the likely situation that he would come under attack. Even without the Guk harmonics, he knew that his chances weren’t particularly bright. He had no clue how to use the ship’s weapons, and frankly, he could barely keep the direction—that is, when he didn’t spill his food on the star map. After the unfortunate incident with the bozal cake, he abandoned the dangerous idea of playing with the navigation table, to avoid the awkward prospect of getting lost in the interstellar space.
On top of that, he never had any trace of technical skills. That also mattered when he picked his profession, in addition to his passion for the ancient legends. Gill remembered his last attempt to solve a technical problem, when he thought he could replace a purple bacteria filter in Tadeo’s dome on the thirty-second floor of the Archivists Tower. It had happened about five years before, shortly after he had been accepted on Tadeo’s team. The attempt ended with a fire alarm that evacuated the whole building, a day’s work for the two experts called in to fix the damage, and his solemn promise that he’d never again undertake such initiatives. For a while, he even had to endure the humor of some of his prankster archivist colleagues, who mockingly organized “security teams” to keep an eye on “Gill’s disasters,” which is how they liked to refer to his small blunders.
While Gill was still busy thinking of outlandish scenarios—each one more fanciful and impractical than the other—he was surprised by a blue warning on the main screen: two ships were detected flying on his tail. Did they see me? he wondered, feeling the cold shivers of anguish coiling his tail.
They were far away—somewhere to his left, at the very edge of the ship’s detection capacity. Gill hoped he might pass unnoticed, but soon he had to give up that pleasant illusion because it became obvious that the ships had changed their direction to intersect his trajectory.
He rushed to the navigation table, deciding that the right moment had come to abandon all caution. The thought that he might get lost in the interstellar space was now the least of his concerns. Therefore, he accelerated as much as the speed circle allowed, prepared to do some jumps if the chase turned ugly.
After a while, the situation changed—and not in a good way. The escorts were still following his ship, but three other ships popped up on his left flank, this time in front of his trajectory. Worst of all, he could make out their gray, sinister silhouettes, identical to his ship. The Grammians had finally found him!
With a glance, he realized he had to do something to avoid rushing into their line of fire. A simple thing would be to change the ship’s direction to the right and leave the pursuers behind, although that wouldn’t delay his defeat for long—five spaceships in a distortion front would travel faster than his vessel.