CHAPTER 24

“LET’S START WITH how in the hell King Benny and I can understand each other perfectly, and go from there. Please and thank you and chop chop time’s a wastin’. If that’s alright with you, Christopher, and all that.”

“Fine,” Christopher said, sounding like it wasn’t.

“She won’t stop until it’s explained anyway,” Chuckie said with a laugh. “But, Kitty, I’d just like to point out that you had no issue with the Planetary Council speaking English.”

“Because Crazy Moira of the Free Women made the point that radio waves traveled, and that was confirmed by the rest. The beings in the Planetary Council are all Space Aged or more. That they learned our languages or whatever before they dropped by for a visit I can believe. Not buying it with King Benny there, unless Bronze Age in this world means interstellar communications capable.”

Jeff sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Implants.”

“King Benny has implants?”

“No,” Christopher snapped. “You do. We all do. Universal communication chips. They hear enough words and they translate that to your brain.”

“We all have them,” Chuckie added. “I honestly thought you knew that.”

“By ‘we all’ do you mean everyone on Earth, everyone working with Centaurion Division, or everyone in our extended family group? And yes, it’s news to me. I like to focus on the bigger picture and all that. And I pointedly don’t remember this implant being installed. Just sayin.’”

“Everyone working with Centaurion,” Chuckie answered.

“Unreal. Really glad I like to learn and all that.”

“It was in the briefing books,” Christopher added. In a tone that was far more accusatory than I personally thought the situation warranted.

“I read those! I mean, finally. But I did read them. I distinctly do not remember the Universal Translator chapter.”

“You probably skimmed it,” Jeff said. “And the implants were put in when you were unconscious, Kitty. At the same time as the tracking devices were installed.”

“And other things I don’t know about?” Refrained from mentioning that the tracking devices had been disabled by our enemies. Clearly, said enemies had left the universal translator functions alone. For which I’d thank them one day. Maybe.

“Probably,” Chuckie said. “But they’re all there for our protection and assistance.”

“Glad to know you’re one with the Centaurion Party Line.”

“Does it matter?” Jeff asked. “I mean, really, right now? We need to find our daughter and the rest of our people who were brought here.”

I wanted that, too, but I wanted answers more. And logic told me that the three of us knowing all that Jeff did immediately would be better than finding it out when we were surrounded by giant, walking and talking, carnivorous rodent people.

“Kitty’s right,” Christopher said. “We need to know all that you know right now, Jeff.”

“Excuse me?” Jeff looked confused. “She didn’t say that.”

“No, but I thought it. Okay, I’m just putting this out here right now—the Purple Land portion of this planet enables mind reading. Period. Maybe it’s all the weird smells, maybe it’s all the colors, it’s probably the water and plant life that everyone there eats in some way, which the three of us have, too. But Chuckie, Christopher, and I have been reading each other’s minds, and we’ve communed with the katyhoppers. Yet, if King Benny can do it, he didn’t let on.”

Jeff shook his head. “I’m having trouble reading emotions here, let alone minds. I only had an idea of where to head because I felt all three of you so filled with terror last night that I could get a general idea of where you were.”

“The snakipede, yeah, that makes sense. But this means, then, that at least part of Planet Colorful is also Planet Telepathic. Maybe each color section enhances or detracts from a psionic ability.”

“I’m with Kitty on this one,” Chuckie said. “Jeff, could you tell us what’s going on?”

“I’d like to know how they thought you were a Messenger of the Gods,” Christopher added.

“And how you become friends with King Benny. I definitely want to know that. And how you managed to lie in any way, shape, or form.”

Jeff heaved a sigh. “I landed on a boulder. It happened to be right when this clan was traveling past it. Needless to say, there was a lot of falling to the knees and bowing. I had to hear them talk for a bit, then I could understand them. I did try to tell them I wasn’t a God, but then it occurred to me that what Kitty and Chuck would do was try to play along and turn the situation to their advantage.”

“And you did?” Hoped I didn’t sound incredulous. I just wasn’t used to A-Cs in general and Jeff in particular managing being sneaky.

He grinned. “Glad I can still surprise you. Yes. I did what we were all able to do before you showed up and called us on it. I just didn’t give them full information.”

“So you said, I’m from far away,” Christopher said. “And they took that to mean the heavens.”

“Right. Anyway, it was better than them attacking me, and I knew I was going to need help to find everyone else.”

“Glad all the political crap has been good for something. I’m glad you didn’t try to talk them out of their beliefs, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Chuckie agreed. “When someone asks if you’re a god, the golden rule is that you say ‘yes.’ I’m kind of as shocked as Kitty that you didn’t protest more.”

“Ghostbusters was such a great movie.”

Jeff gave us both the “really?” look. “I wasn’t sure if it would work, and I figured that my mission was to find all my family and friends, not worry about not telling all the truth to a backward society.”

“Don’t sell them short,” Chuckie said. “With the little I’ve seen so far, they’re like the Ancient Greeks, and that means they have a civilization and society. Believing in Gods doesn’t make them stupid.” He was fond of his Ancient Greece theory. Then again, it was knowledge he had and he, like the rest of us, was out of his element. If being able to compare the races on this planet to Agamemnon and Odysseus made him feel better, bring on Athena and Achilles.

“Well, it still seems wrong to lie to someone who wasn’t trying to kill me. It was tense for a little while, but you’re right—they’re not stupid.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand why you all weren’t near me when I landed, though.”

“We discussed this amongst ourselves already,” Chuckie said. “We were traveling at faster than light speed and something clearly went wrong, because the trip wasn’t smooth. We’re guessing we were moving apart at some rate of speed that put your landing zone, Jeff—you were heading away from the three of us when we were grabbed, remember—at some distance away from ours. And I think we were put on the nearest solid object. For me and Kitty, that was the treetops. For you two, it was something a little more stable.”

“I was trying to get to Jamie when we were taken,” Jeff said quietly. “But I can’t feel her here.”

“That doesn’t mean she isn’t here,” Chuckie said quickly, as my stomach clenched. “You just said that you could barely feel us and only because all three of us were terrified. Based on where we ended up versus where you did, Jeff, Jamie and Paul could easily be on the other side of the world.”

“Or on another world,” Christopher added, unintentionally unhelpfully.

Chuckie shot him a look that said Christopher could stop speaking any time. “Or else she’s with Paul and neither one of them are scared about anything, meaning they’re fine and safe.”

Reminded myself that panicking wouldn’t save anyone, and that if I wanted to get to my daughter, I had to make sure that I and the others were okay and survived first. Four out of the twenty-two taken were okay. Less than one-fifth wasn’t a good enough number, meaning I needed to focus.

Took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I was doing that a lot on this planet. “I’m worried about Jamie, but she has ACE inside her, and I hope that means that, no matter what, she’s safe. ACE is allowed to protect himself, and they weren’t unconscious. I’m willing to take Chuckie’s idea that she’s still with Paul and they’re both somewhere safe as gospel for the moment. So, do we have anything else we need to discuss in private before we rejoin King Benny and his people?”

“Yeah, I’d like to know how you ended up flying with these bug-things.”

“Katyhoppers, Jeff, they’re called katyhoppers, at least by us, and it’s a long story.”

“But he needs to know it, and know it before we join the others,” Chuckie said.

We caught Jeff up on all of our excitement. “Seriously?” Jeff asked. “The katyhopper leaders say there are spaceships in the planet’s solar space?”

“Yes, and I’m sure they’re right. Think about it—there’s only one reason we would all have been dragged here without asking.”

“Yeah, what the three of you came up with makes the most sense. And I can easily believe that there’s fighting going on. It’s hard to keep countries working together—it’s got to be exponentially harder with planets.” Jeff examined the katyhoppers. “They seem . . . smarter than the Lecanora.”

Turkey waved her antennae.

“Turkey says they are in some ways and not in others. They have no contact with anyone in this Bronze Land, so it’s hard for them to be sure. But they can read the Lecanoras’ minds, as well as the other animals’—at least as and how they read them, which isn’t word for word, but more images and feelings—and they seem smart enough. She feels the Lecanora are close to katyhopper sentience levels, with their animals more along the Louie the Lizard level—sentient but not as smart as the ones they’re domesticated under.”

“Are we sure the Lecanora can’t read minds?” Christopher asked. “I’d really like to be sure about that before we all align with them. The katyhoppers more than proved they were our friends. Not so sure the Lecanora have done the same yet.”

Jeff sighed. “I think them believing we’re Gods and not eating us is the best we’re going to get right now. Seriously, if they had mind-reading ability, why would they think I was anything other than an alien on their planet?”

Chuckie nodded. “Good point. And I think it’s time we joined them. Making our new hosts impatient could be bad for us, considered to be Gods or not.”

“Yeah, and you’re right—you all have to be introduced to the rest of the clan.”

“And the rest of the clan needs to buy in that we’re Gods or God Messengers, too,” Christopher pointed out.

“What Christopher said.” This earned me a nice smile instead of a Patented Glare. Planet Colorful might be good for him. “And, by the way, are they going to sniff us or just say hello?”

Jeff laughed. “Both.”

“Oh good. Things were getting far too normal.”