Tobias Buckell - Ragamuffin

“I know,” Xippilli said, and walked out before Ahexotl could call him back.

Two massive Teotl warriors flanked Jerome. They refused to speak to him. They looked straight ahead with silvered eyecaps glinting from the phosphorescent gleam in the walls.

He considered struggling. They were taking him into warrens, down tunnels, through what felt like miles of gloom. Jerome tried to keep track of the constant turns, but realized he couldn’t.

They could kill him here in the gloom, easily enough. But that didn’t make sense, he reassured himself. They could just as easily have done that in the room once his dad left.

A bright spot of light grew until it filled the corridor Jerome walked down. It bathed him in luminescence as a large gob of black fluid oozed down from the ceiling. Tendrils moved out to caress and sniff him. They withdrew as a large plug of rock rolled aside. The Teotl left.

John stood on the other side with his back to Jerome. What looked like a massive curtain of clear goo hung in the center of the rounded room. The wounded Teotl, Metztli, sat in its mobile chair next to John. It was still dirty, its dangerous necklace resting around its neck.

“Dad?”

John turned around. Metztli turned to look at Jerome as well. The chair with the large muscular leg underneath squirmed away from John, Metztli’s tentacles dangling over the edge. “Are you okay, Jerome?”

“Yeah.” Jerome walked forward, and the plug of rock shuddered back into place and sighed shut. “You?”

“They reopened the wormhole.” John gestured at the translucent film hanging in the air.

Jerome stepped up to it and found himself looking into a vast abyss. He stepped back, heart pounding, and looked at the giant slimy curtain again.

“It’s just an organic projection device,” John said. “Come on, step forward again.” He grabbed Jerome’s elbow.

“Worm’s holes,” Jerome muttered. “Like the story about how we all got to Nanagada.” He looked out into the black again. A faint glint at the center caught his attention.

“Waste energy,” John said. “They’re threading exotic matter back into the pinprick aperture of the original hole. It’s like finding a small hole in a wall. They’re putting a piece of material through that’s strong, and then spinning it, so fast, so that it expands, forcing the hole open.”

Jerome looked at his dad and frowned. “And the hole leads to a place far away. To another star.”

John smiled. “Yes.”

“So how come they doing this one so quick?” It had taken hundreds of years for the other wormhole to open, as he’d understood it.

Metztli shuffled forward. “This takes enormous energies, and our home is set to provide those, but we are almost bankrupt from the effort. The other wormhole was even more damaged, tiny, and it had a throttling device installed on it that tried to rebuff our efforts. A present from our cousins, your Loa, who helped you to initially close it.”

“And this wormhole is not throttled, just destabilized and its throat unsupported,” John said.

“Correct.”

“Amazing,” John breathed. “We knew how to close them, but never knew how to reopen them.” Humans had never had the resources to even try to make exotic matter on the scale needed, let alone use it for construction like this.

“But it means our killers will be coming after us soon. Despite our closing the wormhole behind us.” Metztli spread its metal-tipped tentacles. Jerome noticed that they were tiny gold caps. He’d thought they served as protection when on the ground, but maybe they were a fashion accessory. “Time is of essence. We need a treaty as soon as we can and the help of your species.”

“I understand.” John looked over at Jerome, who looked down at the ground.

Something stirred in the ceiling. Jerome stepped backward and looked up, realizing that what he’d thought were fluted decorative arches fitted into the rock above their heads were actually legs.

The spiderlike creature above him lowered a globular head and hissed.

Jerome turned to the Teotl. “Do you fear us?”

The Teotl reached a golden tip up and scratched at Pepper’s explosive collar. “I anticipate troubles,” it hissed. “But I am not worried about my own life, just the perpetuation of my own species now.”

That was interesting. These gods were worried about them, and yet dependent. Jerome liked that. “Just a few of us here, we ain’t no threat.”

“Your actions may affect our lives,” Metztli said. “If we cannot keep the other wormhole closed, we will be exterminated.”

Jerome shook his head. At the start of this he would have given anything to have a Teotl talk about its impending doom, and for Jerome to help destroy it. Or all of them.

He didn’t feel as if he could now. How strange.

The massive stone door blocking them into the nerve center of the Teotl spaceship rolled aside. Xippilli walked in. Five Azteca warriors followed him.

Jerome stared at him, numb and angry. The man who had betrayed them all walked casually in, as if nothing were wrong.

“John, I need to talk to you.” Xippilli walked quickly toward them.

“Jerome looked around. He had no knife, he had nothing. And the murdering clot stood within his reach.

A steady rumble wormed up through Jerome’s feet.

“We’re moving,” John said. “You were going to repair our ship.” John walked forward. The Azteca raised their rifles and John stepped back.

Metztli cleared its throat. “The wormhole is ready now. We did not intend to open it and then return to orbit, we must achieve our goals first. We must be secure.”

Jerome took a small step toward Xippilli, who watched John and Pepper, his hands near a pistol by his belt. The thundering increased, and Jerome could feel himself having to lean against it. He noticed Pepper standing behind them all, blending into shadows in a niche of the wall.

Was there a better time for revenge? It didn’t come easily or announce itself. One had to grab it. Grab it before standing still and just hating burned him up from the inside.

Jerome threw a shoulder into Xippilli and knocked him to the smooth floor. “Murderer,” he hissed.

“Jerome!” John shouted.

Xippilli fought back, but Jerome got his hands on the pistol. He jammed it up against Xippilli’s ribs.

“I only tried to help.” Their noses almost touched.

“Tell that to them that dead.” Jerome pulled the trigger and watched Xipilli jerk as the pistol cracked. “Pepper would do the same. He was there, he saw what happened.”

He could hear the snap of Pepper’s coat, and as Jerome pulled his bloodied hands free with the pistol still clenched in them, he looked up to see one of the Azteca warriors slump to the ground as Pepper whipped toward Jerome.

Pepper grabbed him by the neck and yanked him up into the air. “What the hell are you thinking?”

Jerome choked, vision graying.

“Pepper! Drop him right now.” John stepped forward with both hands tightened into fists.

Pepper threw Jerome against the wall. Jerome scrabbled to his feet, vision swimming in tears, and grabbed his bruised neck, taking deep breaths.

“He’s endangering it all.” Pepper turned his back to Jerome. “We should have left him on the ground.”

Jerome fell back to the ground, dizzy.

“I’m on it.” John dropped to his knees by Xippilli. “But you know what Xippilli did. He ran a big risk.”

Pepper radiated barely contained fury. “He worked from the inside doing what he could. The boy’s too full of misdirected anger.”

“You’re talking about misdirected rage?” John had stripped off Xippilli’s shirt.