The Valkyries of Andromeda

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  So Wanliet and I headed off again with our gear and the stupid balls, this time to fanfare and speeches and medals. You know how unimportant medals are to me, but we took them anyway and smiled, we made little speeches and got hurrahs and applause, and then we mounted our speeder and departed with an escort of horses and newly appointed officers of the militia. Sirah had skipped the entire ceremony, and I can’t say I blamed her.

  Our procession moved north at a canter, one the horses could sustain comfortably for awhile. However it wasn’t long until Wanliet’s roving eyes made out a second speeder north-northwest. It had to be Zeno. Had he been lying in wait for us all this time?

  I had to think quickly. I knew what a speeder could do to horses, especially one enclosed and beefed up as his was. I also knew I couldn’t outrun him, and couldn’t turn back or we’d never get to our ship. I wondered if he’d maybe found the ship himself, and if so what he might have done to her, but then decided he hadn’t been in a position for such bold moves. More important to him than my ship was vengeance, and he had to wait here, on the way, and take no chance of losing me if I delayed going to the ship.

  I pointed out Zeno to the horsemen, saluted a farewell, and speeded northeast, aiming to get on the far side of the mountains and follow the river to the plateau where our ship waited. This time we had a lead on him, and it looked like if I floored it we’d likely beat Zeno to the ship. I risked a look back and saw him accelerate into the woods, figuring to pick us up once over the pass. It would be tight.

  Wanliet and I raced along, throttle wide open and steering the straightest course possible. Above the wind’s roar Wanliet spoke up. “Jaf, I think I figured out about the balls!”

  Racing for our lives he brings up the stupid balls! “Now you bring this up?! I don’t care about the damn balls! We gotta get off this planet before that fiend Zeno catches us!”

  “That’s the whole thing! They can get us off!” It struck me funny, briefly, about balls getting us off, but then I got serious again. “How so?” I yelled. “We gonna bounce off this planet?”

  “The balls can transport us, instantly!” he yelled.

  What could I say? I looked at him funny. “I’ll show you when we get to the ship!” he finished.

  But getting to the ship was looking iffy. We’d raced through the gap and were swinging onto the plateau when we saw Zeno plummeting down the pass close behind, too close for comfort and gaining quickly. Sure, he didn’t know where we were going and we did, but all he had to do was follow us and prevent our launch, by blaster or even ramming. He cared less about saving the ship than about killing me.

  We broke free of the forest on the plateau and skimmed to the landing site. There I turned the speeder sideways and slid gracelessly to a halt, then used my momentum to launch myself from the speeder halfway to the ship, where I tumbled and stumbled to the hatch with Wanliet tripping behind.

  The hatch open we raced back to the speeder to get our stuff and the stupid balls, and then back to the ship as Zeno’s shots started pocking the dirt. I dashed to the console while Wanliet dogged the hatch. “Fire up the integrity field!” he yelled, and since I was about to do it anyway, I did. Wanliet took the stupid balls and arranged them in the middle of the ship and ordered me there. “I have to initiate launch!” I argued. “Jaf, we don’t have time for that, only for this. Come here, grab a ball, and remember!” “Remember what?!” I demanded; he was right, we didn’t have time to take off, at least without a magrail our liftoff would be too slow and too late. Zeno would be sure to cripple the ship before we could get away. It was Wanliet’s crazy balls or doom. “Imagine, vividly, where you found them, the desert on Mobahey! I’ll do the same, and they’ll transport us!” I refrained from asking if I had to click my heels, or what if we imagined different things, or different times … I just closed my eyes and remembered the heat and dry dust of Mobahey, thought about Mobahey’s smells, and sounds, and the shifting shadows under the moons and wished, and through my lids I saw white light as my palms and fingertips felt a swelling vibration, a shudder, and then silent dark.

  The balls were dark and outside the ship the portholes showed night had fallen. Cautiously I opened the hatch and found we seemed to be in the Mobahey desert. Huh – it worked. And Zeno hadn’t managed to hitch a ride.

  We buried the balls again – we didn’t want to explain this to anybody – and I burned a lot of fuel to get us to the space port, where the magrail could take us away. I’m sure I violated many of the Mobahey regulations, but I didn’t care. A few discreet questions showed that Basoolah’s black ship had left weeks ago, so the balls hadn’t warped time, just space. Basoolah was three weeks gone, and that was as good as a whole universe distant.

  Wanliet elected to stay on Mobahey, at least for awhile. He liked the desert, said it gave him perspective, brought him peace, and he wanted to stay near the balls. Truly, some peace sounded mighty appealing right then. But me, I had somewhere to be, so once my ship was on the magrail I headed off to the Empire’s capital planet.

  This jump went a whole lot smoother, and very soon I was making arrangements to land on Goshtinnaw.