Real Boy
Part 8
by Mara (talitha_shipman at tayloru.edu)
3/2/02
Big Guy hanging in space and the Dark Horse totally out.
Emergency battery power didn’t even come on.
Ericka thought for a second. "But Jo’s flashlight works, so
the aliens must just have shut down connected ship’s systems."
Ericka turned to Garth. "Do you have a communications system on
board that isn’t connected to the Dark Horse mainframe?"
"Uh, yeah, we have some laptops with satellite links." Garth
began to see where Ericka was going with her question. "We can wire
them to connect to Dwayne’s helmet. At least we’ll know if he’s
okay."
"The computers are in a locker up on C Deck," Jo said.
Ericka turned to leave the bay. "I’ll go find them."
Rusty pulled on his mother’s arm. "What do I do?"
Ericka smiled. "You stay here where it’s safe."
Rusty frowned. "But I want to go with you."
Erica looked back as she ducked out of the bay hatch. "I’m
sorry, the best thing for you is to stay put."
Rusty watched as she faded into the pitch-black corridor, her
flashlight bounding as she ran.
"She’s right, you know."
Rusty nearly jumped out of his skin when something landed
softly on his back. "Ahhh," he screamed.
Leon, who had suddenly appeared on Rusty’s shoulder, blinked
and wiggled his whiskers. "Your mother is only looking out for you."
Suspicion suddenly popped into Rusty’s mind. "What are you
doing here?"
"Shush." Leon said. "I can’t be seen. It’s dark enough that
I blend in. And it would complicate things if your guardians knew of
my presence. And to answer your question, I am not tricking you or
spying on you. I have your best interest at heart, and you must
trust me."
"I barely know you." Rusty’s brows knitted, making him look
incredibly like a miniature Dwayne.
"Tsk, Tsk. Real humans are so suspicious. You would have
believed me a week ago."
Rusty lowered his voice to a whisper. "Well that was a week
ago and not now. I’ve learned some stuff."
"Ah yes, like grownups can lie, even to you."
"Maybe, but Lt. Dwayne didn’t do it to hurt me. He did it to
keep me safe."
"I know." Leon’s expression softened into a grandfatherly
smile. "Where I come from, children are protected, much as children
are on this planet."
Rusty moved farther away from the Pit Crew, hoping they
wouldn’t overhear his conversation. "Where do you come from? Do
you have a name like the Neo Catarii?"
Leon smiled once again. "My my, you do ask many questions.
So demanding." The small creature took a deep breath and twitched
his nose. "I am a Vlen. We come from a planet known as Vlena.
Those that chose you long ago discovered it. We have always had an
understanding with them. I myself have traveled many years with them,
going to new places, meeting new races. It was quite an opportunity
for a young Vlen like me."
Leon cocked his head and hopped off the boy’s shoulder to
come to a silent landing on the deck plating. "But you, you are
unlike anyone they have chosen. They created you, and for what
purpose, I can only guess. Their ways are shrouded in mystery."
Rusty made a frustrated ‘humph’ and rolled his eyes. "Yeah,
they want me to go with them to see the universe." Rusty stopped
and gave Leon an odd look. "How did you get down here?"
Leon gave Rusty a knowing smile. "I flew."
"Okay." Rusty didn’t ask his next obvious question. He
somehow knew that Leon wasn’t interested in explaining how he 'flew'
down to Earth.
"Now then," Leon said. "I have something to show you. I
know your mother told you to stay put, but this cannot wait."
"First you tell me to stay, then you say go. Make up your
mind," Rusty said.
"I have," Leon said, shaking his whiskers. "We go, but not
off the ship."
Ten minutes later, Rusty and Leon were standing on the
completely blackened deck of the Dark Horse.
"Look up," Leon said. "What do you see?"
"Stars," Rusty said, sounding unimpressed.
"Yes, stars, and galaxies, planets, and other odd things."
Leon sighed.
"Now what if I told you that there was something out there,
something horrible that needed to be stopped."
"Like a monster?" Rusty questioned.
"Worse than a monster." Leon’s expression saddened as he
gazed at the stars. "Something that devours whole worlds. It kills
billions. You do know what death is, don’t you."
"I think. It’s where you just don’t exist anymore." Rusty
kicked at the tarmac beneath his feet. "I had a guinea pig that
died once."
"Well, it may go on existing, but certainly not as it once
did. Death causes pain for the ones left behind, mostly."
Rusty’s expression brightened as he thought of something.
"Could Big Guy stop this thing?"
"Hardly, child."
"Why not?" Rusty seemed confused. In his eyes, there was
nothing Big Guy and Dwayne couldn’t do.
"I’m going to be plain with you, Rusty." Leon’s face became
stoic. "This thing, this plague, is coming for your planet. Nothing
on your planet can stop it. Not Big Guy, Not the Armed Forces,
nothing. It has seen you and it wants to destroy your home."
"Can’t we do anything?" Rusty was beginning to sound
distressed. He hated feeling helpless.
"Yes, Rusty, there is something you can do. You can go up
and visit those aliens in orbit. They wish to give you a gift. I
suggest you let them."
"What? But I don’t want to leave Mom and Dwayne."
Leon sighed. "Boy, there is no choice. These creatures are
our last hope. The do not know the power they possess. They wish
to teach you their ways. They are unknowing of this great evil.
How could they be? They haven’t been in the loop for well over ten
million years. The probe you made contact with is a relic from
their great age. Now they are only spirits, roaming the galaxy,
looking for entertainment. They do not understand pain, fear,
death, anger!"
Rusty took a step back from Leon. The creature’s fur was
standing up on end and his small fists had balled up. Rusty
suddenly caught horrible images pouring out of the Vlen’s mind.
Wails of sorrow seemed to echo off the water below. "What did this
plague do to you, Leon?" Rusty asked.
"Nothing." Leon took a deep breath and smoothed his fur.
"Not for you to know. The truth is this. I have been waiting for
them to bestow their power on someone, so that I could recruit that
someone. I never imagined it would be a mere boy. Now I fear that
we are lost, and the evil continues to spread."
Rusty sat down on the hard deck beside Leon. "I’ll do my
best to help you defeat this evil. After all, that’s what I do.
I’ll go to the aliens and tell them that I will take the powers they
want me to have."
"No," Leon said sadly. A new tiredness changed his demeanor.
"I spoke rashly. You are only a boy. No one can expect you to
sacrifice so much, just a child...." Leon trailed off and continued
to look at the stars.
Rusty frowned. "Look, I may not be a boy robot anymore, but
I can fight, and I’m brave. I’m not afraid of some monster that
deserves to get his butt kicked."
"No, I will look elsewhere." Leon smiled wryly and wiggled
his whiskers. "Go be a boy, Rusty." Leon got up and walked into
the darkness. "Go live," he said, and then the darkness swallowed
him up like a hungry beast.
Ericka came running back with two laptop cases in her arms,
flashlight balanced precariously in her teeth.
"I got it," she said as Jo took the flashlight from the
scientist’s mouth.
"Thanks. Now me might actually find out if ol’ Dwayne is
still holding up the fort." Jo forced a smile she didn’t really
feel like giving, considering the circumstances.
Garth and Mack came up to stand beside the two women as they
unpacked the laptops. "State of the art," Garth said as he grabbed
one and began plugging wires into the computer’s ports. "I hope the
batteries are charged."
"Knowin’ our luck, probably not," Mack added.
"Hey, knock that off," Garth said. "We will make this work."
Mack grumbled something unintelligible.
"Okay," Ericka said, "that should do it." She plugged in one
more cord and hoped for the best. Just as she did so, the lights in
the bay came back on. The familiar rumbling of the Dark Horse’s
mighty engines also started up.
"What? Jo said.
"Doc, you’re a miracle worker!" Garth exclaimed.
"Don’t be silly, I didn’t do this," Ericka said.
The giant video screens at the hangar’s operations center
also came back on line. General Thorton’s angry voice echoed
throughout the room. "....Slate, what happened? For thirty minutes
you people didn’t answer my hails. What is going on down there?"
Dwayne’s voice punctuated the General’s. "Jo, Mack, Garth,
I’m back online."
"One at a time," Garth said. "Dwayne, system rundown,
please."
"I’m at 100 percent."
"Good," Garth said. "Now, General, you were saying."
"We lost all contact with you and the Lieutenant. Our
systems on base were getting static and nothing else. I thought we
lost you."
"I’m fine, General," Dwayne said. "I don’t really know what
happened though. The alien spacecraft is just sitting there. It’s
not glowing at all anymore."
"Yes, and we’re not getting any more strange readings," Dr.
Slate said.
"Maybe it was just their equivalent of a power surge," Jo
said.
Ericka snorted. "Pretty selective power surge. I’m betting
they shut us down for a reason." A thought struck the back of
Ericka’s mind. "Where’s Rusty?"
The pit crew looked around the bay. Jo frowned. "He was
here earlier. He walked off toward the rear of the hangar."
A cold fear gripped Ericka’s stomach like tiny reptilian
claws. "Oh, no. They took him."
"No, they didn’t, Mom." A small, rather timid voice issued
from the door. "Someone told me to stay." Rusty smiled sheepishly.
"I hope you aren’t mad at me."
Ericka ran over to Rusty and scooped him up into her arms.
"Of course not." Her expression darkened as she thought about what
Rusty had said. "Who told you to stay?"
Rusty gave his mother a mysterious smile. "Leon did. But
you don’t know him, he’s from another planet."
Mack grumbled something about this situation becoming nothing
but a gosh dang ‘X-Files’ episode and then went back to testing
ship's systems.
Ericka ignored him and looked at her son. "What did they
want, Rusty?"
Rusty shrugged. "He wanted me to do something at first, and
then he changed his mind. He’s a funny little guy. He did leave,
though." Rusty looked into his mother’s eyes, trying to gauge if
his answer had satisfied her. He soon sensed that she had indeed
decided that for now, that answer would do. Rusty gave a mental
sigh of relief. He doubted very much that she would approve of what
he was planning to do. But he certainly didn’t want to worry her.
He now knew what he had to do, whether Leon or Mom liked it or not.
Leon ran as fast as he could to the Chamber of Contemplation.
The Chamber was the largest room in the entire vessel, and it glowed
and sparkled with the life force of the spirits that dwelled among
its crystal spires. There he knew he would find Calla Dun, the one
that called itself the leader of the ethereal spirits. The spirits
had no physical bodies, but they still existed as shadows of their
former greatness. Many beings Leon had known feared Calla, for what
they could not see or understand often frightened them.
Leon had become quite used to not seeing that which he was
talking to. Calla had also become accustomed to speaking out loud,
as opposed to thinking his comments to his small helper.
Leon bowed low as he entered the Chamber. "My Lord, how is it
with you today?"
"It is good," the shimmering and often singsong voice
answered. "I am surprised to see you back so soon, Leon." There
seemed to be amusement in the spirit’s voice.
"I told the boy to stay, My Lord." Leon braced himself for
the fierce wind that would signal Calla’s anger.
To Leon’s surprise, it did not come. "And you have a reason?"
"Yes, but I must keep my reason to myself for now." Leon
stepped farther in to the sparkling room. "I hope you understand,
Calla."
"I believe I do." Once again, humor entered Calla’s voice.
"Do you really think I know so little about your plight, Leon?"
Leon’s black eyes narrowed until there were mere slits.
"Know, yes; understand, no."
"Ah." The spirit seemed to be thinking. "What you have done
is wise, Leon. The boy is a frail human. Even with the powers of
the Callen Ti, he may not be able to do what you wish. It would be
foolish to risk his life and yours."
"Why did you choose him, my lord?" Leon could not keep the
pain and frustration out of his voice. "Why him to carry on your
legacy?"
"Because he is the one." Calla’s voice softened to a whisper.
"We know what this child means to you, Leon. We know what he can do
for your people. We know and understand. There are things that you
do not know about us. Indeed, you only know a small amount. That
our world was destroyed is common knowledge, but how it happened is
not known."
"I can only guess, my lord," Leon said.
"I will take the guesswork out of it for you." Now the voice
sounded much like the strong and commanding voice that had spoken to
Rusty in the boy’s vision. "You are not the only one to be driven
from your home, persecuted, and left for dead. There was a time
when we were much like you, like the humans down below. We lived
contented lives. But it was all destroyed in an instant. There are
far worse things in this universe than the Plague."
An involuntary shiver ran down Leon’s back. Worse than the
Plague? He could not imagine such a thing.
"But we persevered," Calla continued. "Soon we had this
vessel, and we escaped with our lives. That is what matters." The
spirit paused. "The boy must fight for his own people. You cannot
make him become your savior. The Plague will come here soon enough."
"I did not realize...." Leon began.
"We Callen have long memories. We do not speak of the
tragedies often, however. I wanted you to know that I do understand."
Leon realized that he had not given Calla nearly enough
credit. "Thank you. What do we do now?"
Leon could almost feel Calla leaning forward. "We wait."
"The plan was laid, and all I had to do was wait." Rusty ran
through the corridors of the Dark Horse, seeking the proper equipment.
A frenzied mood had infected him ever since he had made the decision
to help Leon and his people. He didn’t really care that he was an
8-year-old boy. He had a mission and he was sure as shootin’ gonna’
complete it. As he rounded a corner, he found what he had been
looking for. It was another computer storage station, much like the
one Ericka had set out to find hours earlier. He grabbed at the
handles and pushed the locker door open. Inside sat two black cloth
cases with the letters USF stenciled across them. He slung one case
over his back and hurried towards the flight deck.
"What are you doing?" It was Leon, of course, running
alongside Rusty on all fours.
"Sorry, no time to talk, saving the world." Rusty kept on
till he reached a set of metal ladders that led up towards fresh air.
He started to climb.
"Oh no, you aren’t. We are to wait."
"I am waiting." Rusty threw a charming smile Leon’s way.
"This my way of waiting."
"You get stranger and stranger every day." Leon shook his
head as he leapt up the ladder rungs after his misbehaving charge.
"For an eight-year-old, you certainly have a unhealthy lack of fear.
You don’t have any idea what you are getting yourself into."
Rusty stopped dead and leaned back to look at Leon. A
serious expression formed on his face. "Yes I do. I know what
death is; I saw it in your mind. And if I don’t stop this plague,
it will kill everybody I love, just like it did to your family."
Leon’s jaw dropped. "You, you, saw that in my mind? I
thought you couldn’t read me."
"When you were angry on the top deck, you must have forgotten.
I saw it all. I can’t let that happen to my planet, too."
"What makes you think that you can stop it?" Leon puffed up
his fur in frustration.
"Because, Leon, you thought I could stop it. I trust you."
"Oh, for star’s sake, boy, you are just a child. You will be
killed."
"Not if you help me, Leon." Rusty smiled his best and most
sincere smile. "So, will you help me?"
Leon shook his head back and forth in disbelief. "Do you
realize how much you’ve changed?"
Rusty cocked his head at Leon’s comment. "Yes, I do."
Leon sighed. "Then I will help you."
Rusty smiled. "Good. Can you tell the Callen that I want
their gift? I think I already know what it is, anyways."
Leon gave Rusty a confused look. But how did you know that
that is what they are called, and how do you know...?"
Rusty shrugged his shoulders and began to climb once again.
"Just a hunch."
"For star's sake, this might just work." Leon hopped up
onto Rusty’s shoulder. Yes indeed, this might work."
Rusty laughed. "Just like Mom says, ‘you gotta have a plan,
Stan’ and we have one."
Leon blinked. "We do?"
"Yup, and it involves the Big Guy, and a couple of satellites."
"It does?"
"Yes, I may not be a boy robot anymore, but I still remember
how to program and decode things. It’s all still in my brain."
Rusty smiled as they neared the top of the ladder.
"But why are we programming something?" Leon was utterly
confused. Rusty liked the change. Usually Leon was the one that
left Rusty scratching his head.
"You’ll see. We’re going to send a message to someone,
someone who can help."
TO BE CONTINUED
Back to part 7
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