Out There: Book Three: TiWat

By David Gordon

After the narrowest of escapes from Adonae, Sami and Alejandro land on TiWat, the home planet of their relentless enemy, KetaNim.
TiWat is a bizarre and danger-filled world of forests and rivers. From the moment they arrive, Sami and Alejandro are running for their lives from the cruel ruler of the Southern TakTi, SimSimKeta. Keeping a half step ahead of fanged creatures, carnivorous plants, and dart-wielding warring clans, the two friends eventually hide out in yet another world, this one buried deep inside the mountains of TiWat.
In this strange world of endless caverns they discover the odd and beautiful society of the Svaash... and Sami’s father. He is alive, but apparently brain dead. Her father is the key to SimSimKeta's secret, that the TakTi have stolen the technology of the Adonae and intend to invade Earth.
Sami and Alejandro must escape TiWat. And not only to save themselves and Sami’s father. Now they must also warn humanity that SimSimKeta and the TakTi will soon be on their way to colonize Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Gordon
• Release date: Feb 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9780976561644

David Gordon

David Gordon was born in New York City. He attended Sarah Lawrence College and holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing, both from Columbia University, and has worked in film, fashion, publishing, and pornography. His first novel, The Serialist, won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. His work has also appeared in The Paris Review, Purple, and Fence among other publications.

Book preview

Out There

Book Three: TiWat

By David Gordon

Copyright 2014 David Gordon

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Cover design by Alex Gordon

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Peek at OUT THERE 4: Earth

Our Timbuktu

About the Author

Chapter 1

"Now where are we going?"

Sami looked down at her friend, Alejandro, cradled in her arms. He was still unconscious. The left side of his face was swollen and bruised, and a thin line of blood trickled down his chin from a split in his lower lip. The green light pulsed across his face and glinted on the glistening surface of his blood. Sami wiped it from his chin with her fingers, then brushed them clean on her pants. He moaned, and she pulled him closer.

She looked up at the shimmering green light that held them like two moths trapped within a pair of cupped hands. Something amazing was happening outside those protective hands. For the second time in her young life she was zooming through galactic space in an Adonae transporter egg. It wasn’t actually an egg, of course, but that is what it looked like to Sami. She recalled the first time, nearly two years ago, now. She and Alejandro had helped their friend, Brian, escape from Earth to his planet and people, the Adonae. He had to escape because the people on Earth were going crazy. All over the world they were running out of fresh water, and more and more fights were starting over what little water was left. People were scared and angry and wanted desperately to find someone to blame for their problems. Many people blamed the aliens, who had mysteriously crash-landed on Earth the year before. So the government had rounded up and imprisoned all of the Adonae. Including Brian’s parents, Alexi and Shareen. Thanks to Sami and Alejandro, Brian had been the only one of his people to escape.

But why had she followed Brian back to Adonae? She knew why Alejandro had left. But why had she left? Sami often wondered about this, but never came up with an answer that felt completely right.

She thought back on the time she and Alejandro had spent on Adonae, where they were the aliens. So many things had been new and strange to her there. To begin with, the planet was a vast ocean studded with thousands of volcanic islands. The people of Adonae had looked different from her, of course, and they had different food, customs, and language. But in the end Sami found that they were not really that different. She had made friends, and had even become an apprentice Scombro, a reader of people. Her teacher had been Tomsei, Voice of the Adonae Council.

It all had been thrilling in so many ways.

Still, she had left behind her mother, Melanie Lightfoot. Sami often asked herself, How could I have done that to her? This question made her heart ache. And it had no answer.

Alejandro seemed to have had no such concerns. He hated his father and his life in the town of Paradise, Arizona. And he clearly loved Adonae. He had quickly become a good fisherman and an expert sailor. He had learned the Adonae language. And he, too, became an apprentice. Brian’s uncle, Bellos, was teaching Alejandro to be a Quick Eye. Already Alejandro could do amazing things with a rope. And, of course, there was the other Quick Eye apprentice, Bellos’ daughter, Sonda.

Sami grinned as she thought about the pleasure Alejandro and Sonda had arguing and fighting with each other.

Something ran up Sami’s back and onto the top of her head. She rolled her eyes upward and looked into the golden irises of a sonio. It was a hamster-sized creature, with a head that looked like a cat without fur, though the rest of its body was covered with soft, brown fuzz. It had no neck, so it was leaning its whole body over Sami’s forehead to look down at her. It was supporting itself on skinny arms and little hands that were exactly like those of the Adonae; each one had two fingers and two thumbs.

Hi, Finn. said Sami. You made it! She smiled up at him. Finn patted her forehead with his tiny hands, as if he was playing a drum, and then settled himself onto the top of her head.

Sami had to admit that it had been a pretty amazing and wonder-filled couple of years. Even though, from the moment they had arrived on Adonae, the ambassador from the planet TiWat, KetaNim, and his assistant, KetaGar, had tried to have her and Alejandro killed. As it turned out, KetaGar very nearly succeeded.

Had it really been only a couple of years, she wondered? She had to stop and think how old she was now. But that number didn’t seem to mean anything, either. She had the feeling that she was much, much older now than when she had left Earth.

Light sparkled on another dribble of blood running down Alejandro’s chin. Rats, said Sami. Again she wiped away the blood, then sighed and glanced around their tiny, green cell.

The zipping sparks etched crazy patterns on the surface of the transporter egg. It reminded Sami of when she looked through a microscope at the tail of a living fish and saw blood cells whizzing through slender blood vessels, busy keeping the fish alive. Those little blood vessels are called capillaries, her father, Wes Lightfoot, had explained at the time. And the cells are corpuscles. Then he had stroked her head. That was four years ago now. But she could feel his hand on her head still, so warm and gentle that she glanced behind her, expecting to see him.

Of course, he was not there.

Sami snorted and shook her head at her own foolishness. (Finn had to grab a handful of her hair to keep from being thrown off.) She sighed. With her free hand she reached into her pocket and pulled out a smooth piece of white wood about four inches long. It was shaped kind of like a person, though without legs, arms or a face. But it did have a crown carved onto the top of its head. It was a chess piece, the white queen, and it had belonged to Sami’s father. He was an astrophysicist. All she remembered of his work were the towers of sizzling computers in his office and the tall, tippy stacks of papers covered with endless numbers and strange symbols. And that he loved his work. And that he loved her and her mother, too. She was sure of that. So it had made no sense to her or to anyone when, late one night, he suddenly disappeared from his office. No note, no message, no blood, no sign of a struggle, and nothing missing. Nothing, except for the white queen from the chess set that he kept on a table beside his desk.

That same missing chess piece was what Sami was holding now. And this little piece of wood was the reason that Alejandro was out cold, bruised and bleeding.

Or rather, Sami was the reason.

An hour ago they had been on Adonae, and she had been hiding behind a display of TakTi woodcarvings. Alejandro had been crouching behind a counter with a long knife held tightly in his hand. They had discovered KetaGar’s secrets: that he could speak English and that he had betrayed KetaNim. Now KetaGar had one thing on his mind, which was to kill Sami and Alejandro and blame it on the pirate, Pharos. And KetaGar was about to walk into the room to do just that.

But Alejandro had a plan. The moment KetaGar walked into the room, Sami was to have popped up to distract him long enough for Alejandro, knife in hand, to sneak up behind him. That had been the plan. But then, at just the wrong moment, Sami had looked up and spotted her father’s white queen among the TakTi carvings. And it was her that was distracted. And it was Alejandro that got knocked unconscious.

She slipped the white queen back into her pocket.

Alejandro groaned again and twisted in her arms. Before she could stop him, he straightened a leg so that his foot poked into the surface of the green egg. Sami gasped, afraid that his foot would be chopped off, or that it might pop the transporter egg and leave them floating and dying in space. But neither of those things happened. Instead, the green egg simply expanded itself enough to make sure that Alejandro’s foot was still inside. Phew, said Sami. Then she carefully reached out to press her hand against the green surface. Light from the sparks lit up her hand as it drew near. Then, scared, she stopped. Finn leapt from her head down onto her arm and ran up to her hand. He looked at the surface of the egg for a moment, then he began poking it with a finger. Everywhere he poked, the surface pulled back from his finger a fraction of an inch.

Well, that’s good to know, said Sami, and brought her hand back down to help hold Alejandro (though not so tightly now). Finn ran back up her arm and down inside the back of her shirt. His little claws made Sami shiver and smile. She looked down at Alejandro’s face. What will he say, she thought, when he wakes up so far from Adonae?

She shook her head. "Now where are we going?" she wondered out loud.

After KetaNim had shown up in time to kill the traitor, KetaGar, Sami thought that she and Alejandro were saved. She was wrong. That the TakTi knew English meant that they had already been to Earth. This was a secret that the TakTi ambassador had to keep from the Adonae. At any cost. So then it had been KetaNim who picked up the knife. And he intended to use it.

The only weapon Sami had was her training as a Scombro and her wits. She could see that what KetaNim was most afraid of was to do something that was not honorable. This was the fear she used to convince him to transport her and Alejandro away, rather than kill them.

Sami’s training as a Scombro had come in pretty handy.

Or had it?

She had asked KetaNim to transport them back to Earth, but begged him to please, please not send them to TiWat. This was a trick. She hoped. Because TiWat was precisely where she wanted to go. That was where her father’s white queen chess piece must have come from. Maybe she would find him there, on TiWat.

But where is she headed now?

Now the light inside the transporter is changing, the sparks that swarm through its surface are slowing, and Sami feels just a bit heavier. Wherever she is headed, she senses, she has just arrived.

But arrived where? TiWat? Earth? Or somewhere else in the galaxy? Or even nowhere?

And where does she really want to be?

Chapter 2

Now we know who’s in charge around here

The shape of the transporter egg dissolved as its sparks whizzed off in all directions and disappeared, like a cloud of fireflies scattering into the night.

Sami—with Alejandro still in her arms—now sat upon the blue glass of an Adonaean transporter platform. But they were not on Adonae. And they sure weren’t on Earth. Finn climbed up to sit atop Sami’s head and the two of them scanned the room.

It had no windows and was, perhaps, no bigger than a classroom. The size was hard to tell because of the gloomy darkness that filled it like smoke. The far corners and walls were cast in shadows so deep they looked like caves. The only light came from the blue glow of the transporter platform and the control panels flickering in the wall beside it. Sami turned to look at them. They, at least, were familiar. They looked exactly like the panels she had seen on Adonae. Except, now that she looked more carefully, some of the strings of orange, red, and green symbols that flowed and pulsed upon the screens were different. And the wall that the panels were set into was very different, too. Instead of the milk-white glass of the Adonae, the panels were set into a wall of polished wood.

As her eyes got used to the darkness of the room, she scanned it again. She saw that the walls curved upward upon huge wooden arches. Her gaze followed one of these arches up to the center of the ceiling, high above her head, where all of the supporting arches met. The wood was bare, unpainted, but it was not plain. Carved into these arches were wonderful scenes of TakTi people dancing, hunting, cooking, skinning strange animals, carving wood, and doing many other things that Sami did not recognize. Carved into the sides of these great arches were strange creatures surrounded by forests of equally bizarre plants. Sami looked back at the wood wall of the control panels. Now she could see that the wood surrounding each of the glass panels was also engraved with vines and flowers, as though the panels were floating in a dense forest. Sami remembered the amazing collections of TakTi carvings she had seen on Adonae, and she knew that she and Alejandro were now on TiWat.

Finn leapt from her head to the floor. Finn! Come back here! she hissed. But the curious little sonio ignored her and scampered off into the shadows to look around. Now Sami saw that the floor was made of polished stones that had been cut and fitted together so carefully that she was sure not a hair could be slipped between them.

Then, beyond one of the walls, Sami heard the slap of footsteps upon the stones and the rumble of approaching voices. She flicked her head from side to side, looking for someplace to hide. The room appeared to be empty except for the glass platform. But where the curving roof beams met the floor they became deep and massive. Because of the light of the platform and control panels, the far side of the wooden beam nearest Sami cast the deepest of shadows. It was the only possible place.

She scooted out from under Alejandro and stood up, and at once fell back down to her knees. She had been sitting with her legs folded beneath her for too long and now they were asleep and did not want to work. Already she could feel the pins and needles starting in her legs. She knew that in a few moments they would become so painful she would not be able to move at all, so she had to move now.

She forced herself to her feet again, jammed her hands under Alejandro’s armpits and dragged him off of the platform. He cried out softly when his legs hit the floor. Sami’s own legs were starting to scream with pain and wobble with weakness. But the booming voices and footsteps were now very close. She tightened her mouth and dragged Alejandro and herself to the far side of the curving roof beam, where its shadow covered them like the wing of a giant crow.

A wooden door flew open and banged against the wall. There was a moment of silence, then a woman’s voice began speaking in the TakTi language. And whoever was speaking was furious. Sami tried to listen, but by now the pins and needles in her legs were so painful she wanted to scream. She bit her own hand to keep from crying out.

She could hear the group at the door move into the room and cluster in front of the control panels. Immediately the TakTi woman with the gruff voice began barking questions and orders at someone, who answered her very politely when he—for it was a male voice—answered at all. Sami’s legs were starting to come back to normal. The pain had eased up enough that she allowed herself to lean forward to peek past the edge of the wooden arch that hid her and Alejandro from the TakTi.

First the open door came into view. Standing on either side of it were two TakTi who Sami decided must be guards or soldiers. They (like all TakTi) looked powerful, and stood stiffly, staring straight ahead. The guard on the left had long black hair, tied in a knot at the back of his neck, just the way KetaNim and KetaGar’s hair had been. But the other guard’s hair was cut short and hung straight down. Sami realized that this guard was a woman. Both guards had their long, brown fingers wrapped tightly around heavy spears tipped at both ends with gleaming blades. Sami also recognized these blades. They were the same razor sharp material that all knives on Adonae were made of.

Sami eased her right eye a little bit further passed the edge. Now she could see the other two TakTi standing in front of the transporter control panel wall. The one on the right was a TakTi man. Despite his powerful shoulders and arms, the long fingers of his hands fluttered and twisted on themselves as he sputtered out answers to the angry and impatient TakTi woman facing him. She had the same short, straight hair as the female guard, but tied to her hair was a fringe—like a low crown—of thin, white wood spikes that clacked against each other when she turned her head. She was dressed in the softest of leather leggings and tunic (long shirt), both of which were decorated with colorful swirls of plant and animal images. She kept her hands wrapped together in front of her as she looked back and forth between the control panel and the man, barking questions at him.

Now we know who’s in charge around here, Sami thought. The man, she decided, was some kind of assistant to the woman.

The woman and her assistant stared at each other for a long moment. Then three of her fingers uncurled and briefly drew a pattern in the air. The man jerked back, as though she had screamed at him, then he dipped his head and answered her as though a spoken question had been asked.

There was a commotion at the doorway. The two guards were just turning in to the opening to block it but, before they could, someone leapt between them and landed on the floor inside. The guards snapped their spear points toward the jumper, who calmly turned away from them and lifted the back of his long tunic so that they could see his bare bottom. But this meant that now Sami was looking directly at his face and she quickly ducked back into the shadows. Even so she had a clear image of him in her mind. He was a TakTi, all right, but not like the others. He was thinner and shorter. More surprising was that his head was shaved. But most surprising was that, because he had no hair, Sami had clearly seen two crescent scars high up on either side of his head. These scars surrounded two holes; two ear holes, Sami realized. She had never seen KetaNim or KetaGar’s ears, and just assumed that they were hidden beneath their thick, tightly tied hair. She heard the woman in charge snarl something at the guards.

Sami again peeked around the corner. The guards were back at their positions, but the bald TakTi man was still facing where she was hiding. He seemed to be looking right at her. She immediately pulled back again. Had he seen her? She waited for the bald man to cry out and sound the alarm. But instead all she heard was the woman in charge spitting out a few more angry words.

Sami dared to look once again. The bald man was just dropping his tunic and turning to face the TakTi woman. As he did this his tunic made a rustling sound, like layers of silk moving. But Sami could see that it was not silk or some other fabric. He wasn’t even wearing leather, which is what she thought all the TakTi wore. At first Sami thought he was wearing a chain mail shirt, like those worn by knights in armor. But then she realized that the bald man’s long shirt was made entirely of carved wood. Each of the hundreds of links was a tiny head with arms sticking out that linked to other links around it, to make the mesh of the shirt. It was so finely carved that it rustled like fabric rather than rattling like wood. He wore no pants beneath this wooden tunic, and his feet were bare.

The TakTi woman irritably jerked her head first at the control panel then at the transporter platform, and growled something to the bald man. He rocked his head from side to side and answered with a loud whoop that startled the woman. The face of her assistant immediately twisted with disgust and he sputtered angrily at the bald man. At first the bald man grew very still, then he raised his arms above his head and brought them slowly down, his long fingers tracing a flowing pattern in the air. When his hands were back at his sides, he said one, quiet word. The TakTi man’s eyes widened with shock and he immediately brought his right hand up in front of his face with his fingers spread wide. As an apprentice Scombro on Adonae, Tomsei had given Sami the task of watching the TakTi ambassador to learn their language of hand movements. So she knew that this shocked TakTi man was saying with his hand something like, Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me! The fingers of the woman in charge began to flutter like leaves, which Sami knew meant that she was very pleased, then she began puffing air out of her mouth along with tiny squeals. Sami realized that for the first time she was seeing a TakTi laugh.

She glanced at the guards. They had not moved a muscle. But she could see by the tension in their arms and shoulders that they were both working very hard to keep their own hands still.

Orange and blue light on the control panel suddenly came to life, lighting up the room. Afraid she would be seen, Sami pulled back into the shadow. She watched the orange and blue light flicker across the hundreds of carved figures decorating the wooden beams overhead, then the colors faded and were replaced by a green glow. Sami knew this glow very well. She dared to peek out.

A green transporter egg was forming itself upon the platform. The TakTi woman had stepped away from it. She moved one finger slightly, and in the next instant the two guards were standing on either side of the egg, their weapons ready.

The green of the egg grew darker and the sparks grew brighter as they flashed through it with crazy speed.