“I want one,” said Elspeth again.
“You do not!” I snapped.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “Because I wouldn’t be thinking about trying to get rid of it, so it wouldn’t hold on to me so tightly.”
“Well, I’d give you this one if I could!” I said angrily, holding up my foot. Naturally, the chibling tightened its grip on my leg and began to whimper.
Elspeth made a pouty face. “You get everything,” she said. Then she went to walk beside Madame Pong.
I wish Snout was still here, I thought as I thumped along, swinging my right leg in a half circle in order not to knock the chibling against my left leg. He could probably teach me a way to stop thinking about this thing so that it would let go of me.
Of course, thinking about Snout made me sad and worried, because I wondered what had happened to him. It also got me thinking about the book he had given me that I had not read, except for that first page that said, “Stay calm.”
I started repeating that to myself as I walked along. “Stay calm, Rod. Stay calm, Rod,” I muttered over and over again.
I don’t know how long I had been doing that before I realized that the chibling had gotten off my leg, and was moving along beside me. It traveled with an odd kind of flowing motion. Its fur brushed against the ground, and I could not tell how many legs it had. Both its eyes were visible now—they were about the size of Ping-Pong balls and bulged out from the front of its head.
The first thought that came to mind was that if I ran fast enough, maybe I could ditch the thing. I tried to push the thought out of my head, fearing that if the chibling picked it up, it would immediately wrap itself around my leg again.
I stopped.
The chibling stopped.
I got down on my knees.
The chibling stood up, making us nearly face-to-face. Except for the fact that it was about a foot and a half tall, it looked a little like a caterpillar does when it raises its front end. I could see several pairs of little black legs sticking out from under the purple fur.
I felt an urge to pet it, but was frightened of what might happen if I tried. Would it bite me? Wrap itself around my arm? Inject me with some weird Dimension X venom?
I decided to keep my hands to myself.
“Eeep?” it asked pleadingly.
“Oh . . . eeep!” I replied at last. “Look, buddy, I hate to tell you this, but the truth is, I’m not planning on staying in Dimension X, and I don’t think you’d be happy where I come from. So you might want to attach yourself to someone else when you get the chance.”
“Eeeeeeeeeep!” it cried in dismay.
I wondered if it had really understood me or simply picked up on the general idea that I was suggesting it find someone else. Whatever the reason, it began to tremble as if it had caught a terrible chill.
“Rod!” said Elspeth. “You stop being mean to that poor thing or I’ll tell your mother on you!”
“My mother’s not here!” I snapped.
I regretted my outburst immediately—not only because of the look that passed over Elspeth’s face, but because it made me realize that my words to the chibling about leaving it behind when I went home were only so much talk. At the moment the odds of getting home looked pretty slim.
Moreover, those words brought to mind my other major worry, namely how my mother was dealing with our disappearance. If only there was some way I could get a message to her!
“Keep moving!” shouted Grakker, from ahead of us.
Galuspa turned himself into a wheel and came rolling back. His face was located in the center, sort of like a hubcap. “We’re almost there,” he said. “Best not to delay at this point.”
“All right, all right,” I said. “I’m coming as fast as I can!”
“Eeeep!” said the chibling.
“We’re coming,” I corrected.
“Good,” said Galuspa. Then he rolled off to the front of the group.
The low-hanging macaroni sky was moaning and whining above us. It was starting to get dark, which was the first time that I realized that I had no idea where the light was coming from to begin with.
We crested a small hill and found a dozen or so of Galuspa’s people on the other side.
Thank goodness, I thought. At least we’ll be safe for the time being.
That thought vanished when they all pulled out ray guns and pointed them at us. Galuspa, who was now in his regular shape, said, “Please do not resist. I do not want to have to harm any of you.”
CHAPTER
12
The Valley of the Shapeshifters
“TREACHERY!” GROWLED GRAKKER. HE WAS talking to Galuspa, but from the look he shot Madame Pong, I could tell he was thinking that as Diplomatic Officer she should have seen this coming and kept us out of it.
“Not actually,” said Galuspa. “Think of it as a safety measure. Those of us working for the overthrow of Smorkus Flinders cannot be too careful. Treachery does indeed lurk all around us. If we are to take you into our sanctuary, we must be sure that you really are fugitives and not part of that treachery.”
“We came upon you while fleeing Smorkus Flinders,” said Madame Pong. “What better sign of good faith can we offer?”
“That is not up to me to say,” replied Galuspa. “You will have to discuss the matter with the Ting Wongovia.”
“What’s a Ting Wongovia?” whispered Elspeth while the newcomers took Grakker’s ray gun and checked the rest of us for weapons.
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” I whispered back.
I felt a weight on my foot and realized that the chibling had wrapped itself around me again. “Coward,” I muttered, shaking my leg. The chibling only eeeped and clung tighter than ever.
* * *
We started out again, surrounded by the shapeshifters. I kept expecting Grakker to lead a break for freedom by using his flying belt to soar into the macaroni sky. When he didn’t, I tried to figure out why not, and came up with three possibilities: (a) the shapeshifters were all carrying ray guns and could probably zap us instantly; (b) we still had no idea where we were, and at least our captors were taking us someplace; or (c) he actually believed that we (or, more likely, Madame Pong) could convince these people that we were on their side against Smorkus Flinders.
The fourth possibility was that he just didn’t have time to make a break for it. We had only climbed two more small hills before we came to one of those floating ovals Smorkus Flinders had kept stepping through when he took Elspeth and me to his home. This one was much smaller—no more than seven feet high. Someone as tall as Smorkus Flinders wouldn’t even have seen it hidden beneath the macaroni sky.
“We have to go through here,” said Galuspa, waving his ray gun toward the oval. “Three of my people will go first. Then we’ll alternate—one of you, one of us—until we’re all on the other side.”
Three of the shapeshifters immediately jumped through the oval and disappeared. Galuspa pointed his ray gun at Grakker and said, “Now you.”
Grakker snarled, but jumped through the oval.
He was followed immediately by one of the shapeshifters.
“Next you,” said Galuspa, pointing to Phil.
Phil guided his pot to the oval. With a sudden burst of energy from the rockets at the pot’s base, he shot up and disappeared over the edge. Since the bottom of the oval came to about her knees, Madame Pong used her flying belt to get through. Tar Gibbons, however, simply jumped.
A shapeshifter followed each of them.
When they had all gone through, Galuspa pointed his ray gun at me and nodded.
“See you on the other side,” I said to Elspeth. Swallowing nervously, I approached the oval. Stepping over an edge that was knee height to Madame Pong was easy for me, of course. Even so, I hesitated. While I had been through several of these things already, I still didn’t like the idea. What if it malfunctioned, and I ended up nowhere at all? What if it brought me out in midair, and I ended up plunging to
my doom?
Reminding myself that I had a flying belt, I stepped through . . . and began to smile. After the strange desolation through which we had been traveling, the place to which Galuspa had brought us was almost unbearably beautiful. Weird, of course; we were still in Dimension X, after all. But beautiful nonetheless.
No longer did the boiled macaroni sky hang oppressively over our heads. Now the sky was clear and distant, as it should be. True, it was streaked with purple and green, and filled with large red balls traveling in slow circles. But at least I didn’t feel like it was about to crush me.
Nor was the ground empty and bare. Things were growing here. What kind of things I couldn’t say, other than that they were large and mushroom-like. But it was a relief to see some plant life again.
When I say large, by the way, I mean tree size. The average “trunk” had a diameter about the same as my waist; the biggest ones were as big around as the Things’ blow-up wading pool. Their spreading caps, which grew as much as a hundred feet above us, were easily large enough to make a roof for a good-size house—and indeed, when we traveled a little farther, it turned out that the people here used them for exactly that purpose. They came in a variety of colors, including three or four that I had never seen before. When I asked Phil how that was possible, he told me that light behaved differently in Dimension X than in our own world.
Things that looked like snakes with wings flitted among the trees.
The oval had deposited us on a broad hillside. Ahead of us a path wound gently down among the mushroom trees. Not far from where we stood the path crossed a little stream by means of a bridge. The bridge was yellow, but I could not tell what materials it was made from.
The stream reminded me of how thirsty I was.
I was still trying to take all this in when I was knocked over by the shapeshifter who came through the oval after me. I felt really stupid; I should have realized I would have to get out of his way. Elspeth arrived soon after, followed by the rest of the shapeshifters. Galuspa came through last.
“Home at last,” he said. “Welcome to Laronda, the Valley of the Shapeshifters.”
His voice was not simply cheerful. I would have to say it was joyful. Moving to the head of the group, he began to lead the way down the path.
“I’m thirsty,” said Elspeth when we got to the bridge.
“You may drink,” said Galuspa, gesturing toward the stream.
I was thirsty, too, but when I started to think about drinking that water, I realized that I was even more concerned about what it might do to us than Elspeth had been about eating the food earlier.
“Is it safe?” I asked Phil. (I asked Phil because he was the ship’s Science Officer.)
Rather than answering me he turned to Galuspa and said, “May I sample the water?”
“If you must.”
Phil guided his pot down to the stream, extended one of his roots, and dipped it into the water. After a moment he retracted the root. Gliding back up to the bridge, he said, “The chemical composition is exactly the same as water in our dimension. Taking into account several factors, I estimate that the chance of dangerous microorganisms is approximately two percent.”
“Not high, but not as safe as I would like,” said Grakker.
“Maybe we shouldn’t drink it after all,” I said nervously.
“Perhaps not,” replied Phil. “However, the chances of death from dehydration should you have nothing to drink are, in the long run, one hundred percent. As it seems unlikely that we will be able to return to the ship any time soon, it might be wise to drink now.”
“Would it be possible to get sterile water where you are taking us?” Madame Pong said to Galuspa.
“This is what we drink,” he said. “Besides, it is growing dark, and soon we must rest for the night. We are still another day’s travel from our village.”
Which pretty much decided the matter. One by one, under the watchful eye of the shapeshifters, we went to the stream and drank. The water was cool, clear, and delicious. Even so, I worried that I was going to catch some terrible Dimension X disease and die. (Several of the shapeshifters took the opportunity to drink, too, but I figured they would be used to whatever germs might live in the water, so that didn’t make me feel any safer.)
We continued our journey, traveling up and down several hills. Though the path itself was bare, the forest floor on either side of it was covered with strange plants, including some red ones that made a constant humming noise.
“Hey,” said Elspeth. “The hills really are alive with the sound of music!”
Finally Galuspa called a halt for the night. The shapeshifters prepared a meal, which turned out to be kispa-dinka, fried and mixed with something that looked like flower petals. Remembering the food we had been given in Castle Chaos, I stared at the meal for a long time before I finally got up the courage to taste it.
To my astonishment (and relief!) it was pretty good—sweet and slightly spicy. I ate three helpings of it.
* * *
When it was time to sleep the shapeshifters linked themselves together to form a fence around us. While I was trying to settle down Madame Pong came and sat next to me.
“Rod,” she said softly. “I need to speak to you for a moment.”
“About what?” I asked warily.
“I have done something that you need to be aware of.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked directly into my eyes. “When we discovered that you had been taken to Dimension X, I took the liberty of sending your mother a letter.”
“You did what?”
She put one of her long–fingered hands on my arm, a request for me to stay calm.
“You must understand that we had no way of knowing how long it would take us to find you and return you to your home. Rather than have your mother wracked with worry about what might have happened to you, I gave her a reason for your absence.”
I snorted. “You think telling my mother that I was kidnapped by a giant monster from Dimension X is going to make her stop worrying?”
Madame Pong smiled gently. “I didn’t say I told her the truth, only that I gave her a reason for your absence.”
I frowned, trying to imagine what reason Madame Pong could have invented for my absence that would have kept my mother from going berserk with worry. It was ridiculous; there was no such excuse.
Or so I thought.
“All right,” I said. “What did you tell her?”
“I said that your father had taken you away for a visit, and that he would bring you back as soon as he was able.”
I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I hadn’t seen my father in nearly three years. Madame Pong’s excuse was my secret daydream.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “I don’t think that’s going to make her much happier.”
“Would you prefer that she be left with no hope, living in terror of what has happened to you?”
Since that was exactly what I had been worried about, I had to admit that Madame Pong’s solution was at least a step in the right direction.
“I wrote the letter as from an anonymous friend of the family, assuring her that you would be well cared for, and that you would return before the end of the summer.” She paused, then said softly, “I hope that we will be able to turn that much of the letter into the truth.”
“It was kind of you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
She shook her head. “It is not enough, but it was the best I could do on such short notice. We do have some ways to make it more believable. There will be some other clues and messages, things to help set your mother’s mind at ease. In fact, later this week she will received a phone call from you.”
“I can call home?” I cried, feeling a little like E.T.
Madame Pong looked distressed. “No, of course not.”
But you said . . .”
“I’m sorry, Rod. I didn’t mean to mislead you. What I meant was that recordings we ha
ve of your voice from the last time you were on the Ferkel will be used to synthesize a brief message to her, assuring her that you are well.”
“Awesome!”
“Additionally, it is my hope that once things are in motion our agents will realize that Elspeth is with you, and weave her into the story they are creating to cover for your absence. Your mother won’t be happy, but I think we can keep her from total panic.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
That night I slept soundly for the first time since I had been brought to Dimension X.
* * *
The next morning, after a breakfast of kispa-dinka, we set out again. When we had been walking for about an hour Tar Gibbons made a point of positioning itself beside me. At first this pleased me, because I admired the Tar, and wanted it to like me as well. But after a while I got the weird feeling that it was examining me—studying me for some reason.
At last we crested a steep hill and found ourselves looking down on Galuspa’s village. I didn’t realize it was a village at first because all the houses had roofs made from the tops of the mushroom trees, so it just looked like another forest until I realized that the “treetops” were much too close to the ground. Then I noticed the winding streets, and the people walking along them.
“Home at last,” said Galuspa happily.
In the village we passed a group of children playing a game that seemed to consist of seeing who could twist their body into the weirdest shape. Just watching them made my bones ache, though I also found myself wishing that I could do the same thing. Turning myself into a chair would be a great way to hide from Thing One and Thing Two whenever I didn’t want to play with them.
Thinking of the Things only made me realize how far I was from home, which only made me feel sorry for myself again.
The chibling seemed to sense my feelings, because it made a very sympathetic-sounding “Eeep?” and began to climb my leg.
“Oh, leave me alone,” I said irritably.
“Turn not from solace when solace is offered,” said the Tar. “The cup of pain cannot always be shared.”
I sighed, but bent and let the chibling climb onto my shoulders. If it was going to insist on latching on to me, carrying it would be easier than walking with it wrapped around my leg.