“Anything else I should know before I let it swallow me up? Do I put my head straight up his ass?”
They blinked at her in perfect unison.
“Not as far as we know,” said Blue, hedging his bet.
“You can begin.”
“Good luck,” added Yellow.
Laureline raised the jellyfish over her head.
“Don’t forget!” Blue looked genuinely concerned.
“One minute!”
“Not a second more!”
“Got it,” Laureline replied. And she pulled the jellyfish onto her head.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The slimy body of the jellyfish oozed down, plastering itself to Laureline’s face and swallowing her slender form down to her waist. It was even more disgusting than she had anticipated, and for a second she had to fight a quick frisson of fear as it pressed its gelatinous body over her mouth and nose. Yet she realized that, somehow, she could still breathe.
She placed aside all thought of queasiness and revulsion, and focused on Valerian.
In her mind’s eye, she visualized him as clearly as she possibly could. She tried to remember everything: his face, his laughter, and his smart-assed, playful superiority. His voice, his scent, the feel of his touch. The pressure of his lips against hers. How he had looked when he was holding her, right before their arrival at the station. His eyes wide and soft, listening to her as she poured out some of her most private thoughts, which she had never shared with anyone. Her realization that, before he had answered and been interrupted, he had been trembling.
And so had she.
Valerian…
And then all at once, even though her eyes were closed, Laureline could see.
She was struggling out of the gel-like cocoon that the Pearls had—
No. She wasn’t.
Valerian was.
The Doghan Daguis had been right. She was seeing everything through his eyes.
Laureline’s heart sped up as she experienced everything with him: the startling, oddly euphoric sensation of running clear through walls with no fear of harm; leaping into space while creating your own stepping stones of translucent blue; running through nuclei fields, and being telepathically yelled at by furious Omelites; chasing the impossibly beautiful Pearl vessel, the shock of watching it splinter into several smaller ones; the decision to chase them down with the Sky Jet.
“Fifteen seconds!” The voice was jarring and almost pulled Laureline out of her focus. It took a heartbeat for her to realize it was one of the Doghan Daguis yelling a warning.
She dipped back down into Valerian’s viewpoint, watching as he fired a harpoon that connected with the pretty, swift little vessel. She could feel her heart slamming against her ribcage now, faster than it had ever beaten before. Faster than it ought to beat.
Valerian was towed along as the ship tried to break free. It was hurtling him back and forth, like a child’s plaything—
Sweat began to sheet down Laureline’s body.
Back and forth Valerian swung, until at last—the hull of a cargo ship approaching, fast, too fast, and the Sky Jet slammed—
Laureline screamed.
The wreckage lay there, illuminated by erratic, faint, purple-blue light. Laureline was making bargains with the universe when, thank goodness, Valerian pulled himself out of the smoking wreckage of the Sky Jet, swayed, then slumped to the ground.
Everything went black. Then, suddenly, Laureline was out of his point of view, staring down into the precipice at his too-limp form. Valerian! His image suddenly became blurry. For an awful second, she thought she was losing contact with him, but then she realized that it was only her own tears that obscured her vision.
The voice of Burgundy penetrated her fear, shouting, “Thirty seconds!”
Laureline stared at Valerian an instant longer, then set her jaw. Crying over him wasn’t going to save him. Figuring out where he had crashed would. She tore her gaze from his sprawled body and looked around the precipice where her vision-self stood.
“Fifty seconds!” yelled Yellow.
“Get out!”
“Now!” shrieked Burgundy.
Laureline couldn’t.
Not yet. Not before she had located the man she—
The image blurred a second time, but not from tears. Laureline suddenly felt exhausted, as if she had run a hundred miles without stopping, and realized it wasn’t her body, but her mind that was growing exhausted from the strain.
Come on, Laureline—
And there. Her frantically seeking gaze fell on a pipe with words painted on it. Her head was starting to spin. She fought against it, but her legs quivered and abruptly gave way. She landed hard on her knees, but she had seen and memorized the information.
L.630.E.SUL-DEACTIVATED.
The image faded away.
Laureline could barely lift her arms, but she forced herself to do so. Shaking, numb fingers fumbled to grip the slippery creature that covered her head and torso. With her last ounce of energy, she wrenched the clinging creature off her. It landed on the deck with a soggy splat and she stared at it, trembling, drenched with sweat and seawater, exhausted to near-unconsciousness.
The jellyfish had turned completely black.
“Incredible!” Blue exclaimed.
“One minute—”
“—and ten seconds!” crowed Yellow, excited.
“A record!” announced Blue.
The jellyfish quivered, and as Laureline watched, her lip curling in disgust, it pulled itself to the edge of the dock and slipped back into its element with a soft splash.
“Are you all right?” Burgundy asked, worried.
“Did you find him?” Yellow inquired.
Panting, Laureline blurted, “L.630.E.SUL… DEACTIVATED.” Still on hands and knees, she glanced up at her companions. “Any idea what that means?”
They looked at one another meaningfully, then Blue spoke. “Level six hundred thirty East.”
“Most likely a sulfate pipe,” added Burgundy.
“Deactivated, apparently,” Yellow said, seemingly annoyed at being stuck with stating the obvious.
These three had been the source of many an irritation in the past. But today, they’d done everything they said they would do, though, admittedly, for a fee. Because of them, she was going to be able to find Valerian.
“Thanks,” Laureline said sincerely, and gave them all a smile.
“Our pleasure, Sergeant,” Blue said. He put a stubby hand to the center of his narrow chest and bowed slightly.
“You want a detailed map?” offered Burgundy.
And, naturally, Yellow added, “For an absolute bargain.”
Sergeant Neza, at least, had some good news for Okto-Bar: they had located Agent Laureline.
Tall, slim, ramrod-straight, Neza pointed to the station’s map. “We biologically traced Sergeant Laureline to here.”
“What was she doing out by the Galana Sea?” Okto-Bar asked, surprised. This whole thing was becoming stranger by the minute.
“We don’t yet know, sir,” Neza replied. “What we do know is that afterwards she stole a vehicle and headed into the red zone.” His assuredness faltered slightly as he added, “We lost track of her at that point.”
Okto-Bar’s eyebrows rose. The red zone… A slight smile touched his face. “No idea how, but she must have located the major!” A little more good news, if it was true.
Another sergeant poked her head in and asked, timidly, “General? There ah… there are three Doghan Daguis who claim to have information that might interest us.”
No one liked Doghan Daguis. They lived by selling information, not volunteering it. The young sergeant had been right to be hesitant to mention them. But at this point, two of the spatio-temporal agency’s best were missing, and Okto-Bar was not about to let any lead— even one brought to him by a trio of Doghan Daguis— pass by unexamined.