Читать книгу Space Patrol! - Sarah Nicole Nadler - Страница 9

The octopus floated up toward the surface of his ocean habitat, large black eyes trained on Lissa. His coloring was magnificent—he was a pale matte silver all over with the brilliant blue rings that gave his species their name. For a long moment the two faced each other through the glass wall, doubt niggling Lissa’s mind at the idea of this creature’s intelligence being so far superior to humankind. Just when she began to be convinced that these aliens had been pulling her leg, the octopus moved.

Curling up a front tentacle, he jabbed it in the direction of the keypad to her left. She looked. He bobbed his ill-proportioned head up and down in the water, and pointed again—more urgently this time. Cautiously, she walked over to the panel, her eyes following the octopus as he floated along behind her. When she was directly in front of it, the small cephalopod made a quick series of gestures with two tentacles against the glass wall, clearly indicating the sequence of buttons she ought to push to release him from the tank. Lissa stared! Here was an octopus teaching her how to operate an alien digital keypad.

Shaking her head, she tapped her own breath mask and said, although she knew he could not hear her through the glass, “All the water will drain out. How will you breathe?”

The octopus seemed to understand her. With a deft twirl he spun himself to face the other way in the water. With his back to her, he used two tentacles to make a strange motion at the back of his skull. Lissa was flabbergasted when what appeared to be a layer of skin split evenly down the middle and peeled away. He released the ends of the skin layer and it fell seamlessly back into place. Suddenly, she understood.

“You’re wearing a wetsuit,” she laughed, “Literally, a wetsuit; it’s keeping you wet!”

She shook her head again in amazement as the octopus turned to face her, clearly searching her face with his large alien eyes for some sign of comprehension. She nodded slowly, the comprehension continuing to dawn in her mind. The wetsuit must be some alien technology on the order of an astronaut suit for octopuses. No matter the atmosphere, he seemed to be telling her, he would be able to breathe.

She gestured him back to the panel and followed his careful tentacle jabs with her fingers until the door to the tank opened with a hiss. This one was different than the others and instead of opening vertically—and letting all the water slosh out into the corridor, the tank opened from the top and Lissa was able to reach down into the water and lift the octopus out.

“Thanks,” a male voice said when she had placed him on her open palm at eye level. The octopus wetsuit must have had a Translator installed somewhere, for the inflection was mechanical and sounded not dissimilar to the round bot still hovering beside her.

“Wow, I can barely believe it,” Lissa told him in awe, “Are you really from outer space?”

“Yep,” there came a tiny nod, “Born and raised on Jupiter’s moon.”

“What’s your name?”

“Octavian Stubergott III, at your service,” there came another bow. Lissa was beginning to get the idea that space aliens were a rather well-mannered lot. First Mr. Piff, and now Octavian was bowing to her. Captain Nask must have been the exception that makes the rule, she thought disgustedly.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Stubergott,” she curtseyed, careful not to wobble him about too much on her palm as she did so.

“Just Octi, please,” he replied, “I’m trying to acclimate to Earth behavior. Your people seem very fond of nicknames.”

Lissa laughed at that, “Then you can call me Lissa, but my real name is Melissa Phelps.”

“Good day and calm waters to you, as we say at home,” Octi said.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

The top button on Mr. Piff’s lapel blinked and gave a short beep. He tilted his head, his small ear twitching as he listened to a murmuring voice, and then he announced, “The Earth President has agreed. Lissa has been appointed as Ambassador of Earth.”

Stephanie cheered. Ash translated for Shika and they both stepped forward to congratulate her. Even Shiro looked pleased, giving her an approving nod. Lissa was less sanguine about the whole thing.

“Now what?” she asked Mr. Piff, “What do I do exactly?”

“Well, your first action will be negotiating for a contract with the Galactic Trade Company,” he said briskly, “We’ll have to use your MTrans to get there—the Forty-Five is not equipped for surface landings.”

“What’s an MTrans?”

“Matter Transmitter;” her bot stated, “A line-of-sight transportation device using matter/energy conversion mechanics to disintegrate objects and bodies in one location for reintegration in another designated locality. See note at Transportation, Space.”

“Thank you, bot,” Lissa said politely.

“So that’s how Nask got us up here,” Stephanie whispered in her ear.

“Beam me up, Scottie!” Lissa joked.

With the direction of Octi at the navigation station, Lissa and her new crew trimmed the sunsails and laid in a course for the western seaboard of North America, and in a very short time they were hovering over downtown Los Angeles.

Lissa decided to bring Stephanie with her planetside, and left Shika in command of the Forty-Five with Ash on first watch. Having done quite a bit of sailing in the summers she spent with her dad, Lissa knew and was able to instruct her new crew a bit about sailing lingo—which the translator bot assured her was quite appropriate for space. Learning how exactly her new ship worked would have to wait until they returned.

Shiro was named as second watch, to assume the duty when they returned. He went below to visit Rasta as the two girls and Mr. Piff took up positions in front of the foremast where two small symbols on the deck marked the MTrans field.

Once again a pop mixed with a fizzle as the air around Lissa and the others gave a golden shimmer, and they found themselves standing outside the One-World Tower.