Phoenix by S. F. Said
Lucky’s anger ebbed away at her words, because she was right. His whole life, that was exactly how he’d felt.
‘So what?’ he said.
‘So have you always been this rubbish?’
‘I guess so,’ he sighed. ‘Anything physical, I’m terrible. But what about you? Isn’t it weird how good you are? Have you always been this good at fighting?’
She looked suspicious for a moment – and then a smile flashed across her face. It was the first time he’d seen her smile, and it was like seeing a comet in the night.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I was always good.’
‘How did you learn?’
‘Taught myself.’ She shrugged. ‘Me and Frollix, we grew up in the Human worlds. Frollix might look big and scary, but he’s not much use in a real fight, and they always seemed to happen, wherever we went. So I had to learn to defend myself.’
‘That must’ve been hard.’
‘At least I learned. Lots of Axxa never did. You should see how hard it is for them.’ She paused, and then jabbed the battered punchbag. ‘You don’t know the Astral Martial Arts, do you?’
‘The what?’
‘The way I was fighting just now: Astral Martial Arts.’
Lucky shook his head. ‘Of course not. Why would I? But I think my mother did . . .’
‘Yeah, I saw her. She was good. Where did she learn?’
‘I wish I knew.’ He bit his lip. The more he found out about his mother, the less she seemed like the suburban mum he’d always known, with her baking trays and apron. ‘What is Astral Martial Arts, anyway?’
‘Fighting like the stars!’ said Bixa. ‘They’re the most powerful thing there is, so if we want to be powerful, we should be like them.’ She took up position on the mat again. ‘We have twelve styles of combat, based on the twelve signs of the zodiac that were originally seen from Earth.’
‘You know about Earth?’ said Lucky, surprised.
‘Course we do. That’s where we started out from, too. We travelled further than you Groundlings, we evolved a little on the way, but we all began on the same planet Earth. That’s why the twelve star systems of this galaxy are named after those constellations. Do they really not teach you anything in those stupid Human schools?’
‘Doesn’t seem like it,’ Lucky had to admit.
‘Well, if you know the signs of the zodiac, that’s a start. There’s a different fighting style for each sign, from Aries the Ram to Pisces the Fish.’ She began to move again – to move in that mesmerizing way, flowing like a fish through water . . .
‘Is that Pisces?’ guessed Lucky.
‘See? You do know something. Now get up and help me train.’
‘No!’ he protested. ‘I don’t know! I didn’t even know my mother did, until – until – the Shadow Guards . . .’ His words tailed away. It was too painful to say out loud. He closed his eyes, the hole in his heart burning with the memory of her loss.
All this time, Bixa didn’t say a word. She was totally silent as the fire burned and burned in Lucky’s heart.
At last, he opened his eyes again. And to his surprise, she stuck out a hand, and helped him to his feet.
‘Look,’ she sighed. ‘It’s true that you’re terrible, but I really need a training partner, and you’re all I’ve got. You don’t have to know anything; you just have to do what I tell you. And now I know how bad you are, I’ll try not to break you. Whaddaya say?’
‘Bixa, I hate fighting,’ Lucky replied, shifting uncomfortably on the mat. ‘It’s my least favourite thing ever. Imagine the thing you hate most—’
‘OK, I get it! So here’s the deal. You say you want to go to the War Zone to find your dad. But you don’t know the first thing about it, do you? You don’t even know what’s out there! So . . . if you help me with my training, you might just get some answers.’
Lucky’s heart skipped a beat. ‘You’ll help me?’
She shrugged. ‘I might answer your questions – if you help me with my training. Do we have a deal?’
He took a deep, deep breath. Braced himself.
‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘We have a deal.’
Chapter Eleven
‘Hey you guys!’ called Frollix, that evening. His eyes gleamed with blue fire as he surveyed the scene in Bixa’s cabin. ‘Heard you were working out. How’s it going?’
Lucky’s body ached all over. He’d mainly been Bixa’s punchbag, but somehow, he didn’t mind. She was a fantastic fighter, fierce and proud, yet she never gloated; she just got on with it.
‘Let’s just say she’s winning,’ he admitted.
Frollix grinned a huge grin. ‘Don’t feel too bad. Bixa’s the sharpest kid you ever met. Anything she puts her mind to, she’s brilliant. OK, she can be a pain in the—’
‘Any time you wanna do more training, Frollix . . .’ said Bixa, needles bristling.
Frollix held his hands up. ‘No way!’ he laughed. ‘But if Lucky survived Astral Martial Arts – maybe it’s time he came and had a meal with us?’
‘Not a good idea,’ said Bixa quickly, to Lucky’s relief. Lonely as he was, he didn’t want to eat Alien food.
‘C’mon!’ boomed Frollix. ‘What can go wrong?’ And before Lucky or Bixa could protest, he was leading them out of her quarters and back to the Sunfire’s main cabin.
Beneath its curving arches and vidscreens, Mystica stood at the stove, wearing her peacock-coloured robe and a matching headscarf that covered her hair. Laid out before her were three large, steaming, covered tureens.
‘Welcome, Lucky,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re joining us. That’s enough fighting for one day. Enough fighting for a lifetime. It’s time to eat now.’
He smiled nervously. He was hungry after training, but what was in those tureens?
‘Oh, how about just a bit more fighting?’ said Bixa, shaping into the style of Sagittarius the Archer. Frollix shadowed her, stretching his arms back into the posture, making his massive muscles ripple.
‘You know what I think of all this violence,’ tutted Mystica. ‘Take no notice of them, Lucky. The Axxa have been peaceful for centuries. Our religion tells us that we are all connected. An injury to you is an injury to me.’
‘Yeah, just a shame the Shadow Guards don’t believe that!’ said Frollix. ‘Or the Axxa army!’
Mystica lifted a lid off a tureen, and stirred its contents. Clouds of scented steam rose into the air. But still Lucky couldn’t see what lay inside it. ‘That’s enough, you two,’ said the old lady. ‘Where is the Captain?’
‘I told him supper’s ready,’ said Frollix, ‘but he said he’s staying at the helm to watch for pirates. I told him there’s nothing we can do if they decide to stop us, but he won’t listen. So let’s just eat without him. Sit yerself down, Lucky, and sample some of our cuisine!’
They sat cross-legged on the spherical silver seats around the table. With a flourish, Mystica opened the tureens. Lucky stared into them. And his hunger vanished as he saw what lay before him.
The first pot contained some kind of dark green slop. The second contained slimy, wet-looking stuff; he had no idea what it was, but the word ‘intestines’ came to mind. He hardly dared look at the third pot, because it seemed to be looking back at him.
No: it was looking back at him. Because it was full of eyeballs.
Eyeballs.
Lucky blanched. He felt faint. He’d heard about this, of course, but he’d never seen it in real life. And yet here it was. A steaming pot of eyeballs.
Frollix was already shovelling food into his dish, and licking his lips. But Lucky couldn’t move. There were eyeballs, staring at him! He gazed back at them in helpless horror.
‘Mystica!’ hissed Bixa.
‘What, my dear?’ said the old lady, tucking in.
Bixa looked embarrassed. Her needles had gone dark red, puce, almost like they were blushing. ‘Can’t you give him some of that Human stuff? The Groundlings think our food’s disgusting; it was stupid
Her words snapped Lucky out of his daze. He shook his head, a little too vigorously. ‘Oh no – it looks – uh – it looks great!’ he made himself say. ‘Thank you.’
Gingerly, he poured a spoonful of green slop into his dish; it looked the least revolting. There was no way – no way in all the galaxy – he was ever eating eyeballs.
‘Saving the best till last, kid?’ said Frollix, winking his approval.
‘You’re very polite, Lucky,’ said Mystica. She plucked an eyeball from the pot, and dropped it into her mouth. ‘But truly, there’s no need. Just dive in.’ Lip-smacking noises followed as she swallowed the eyeball whole, and sighed with pleasure.
Lucky glanced at Bixa. She was biting her nails; she looked mortified. Her needles were black now, and almost completely pulled back, burrowing into her hair like they were trying to disappear.
Somehow, he didn’t like the idea that his presence could make her embarrassed about her own food. He wanted to make the embarrassment go away. But there was only one way to do that.
‘Better hurry!’ said Frollix, popping an eyeball into his mouth.
Bixa shook her head. She looked miserable. ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to,’ she said, in a low growl. ‘I know how you Groundlings think.’
Lucky forced himself to reach forward, and pick up an eyeball. It was deeply unpleasant to touch. Slimy wet and gelid, just as he feared. But now he’d started, he had to see it through.
‘Who are you calling a Groundling?’ he said defiantly, as he popped the eyeball into his mouth.
And it tasted . . . amazing.
Sweet. Soft. Spangly as snow, the flavours swirled around his tongue. The only thing he’d ever had like it was ice cream. But this was even better. He laughed as the eyeball went fizzing down his throat, and he reached at once for another.
‘Course, they’re not actual eyeballs!’ said Frollix, with a grin. ‘We just make ’em like that so Groundlings won’t eat ’em all! Good, huh?’
‘They’re better than good,’ said Lucky. ‘They’re incredible!’
Mystica smiled proudly. ‘Things don’t always taste how they look – eh, Lucky?’
‘You really like them?’ said Bixa, looking shocked.
‘Oh yeah!’ he said, as he gobbled the second eyeball. And seeing that he meant it, Bixa’s face lit up with warmth, and her needles glowed a happy neon pink.
‘Well. That’s OK, then,’ she said. ‘But don’t think you can eat them all, just ’cos it’s your first time!’ She dived into the bowl, her long fingers scooping up eyeballs faster than he could see. He looked at her, and the warmth in her face seemed to spread across his own.
Behind her, on the vidscreens, the images of the Twelve Astraeus were glowing like stained glass. Lucky gazed up at them. They’re so beautiful, he thought. And these Aliens – these Axxa – well, maybe my mother wasn’t so crazy to get a ride with them.
‘So, Lucky,’ said Bixa, ‘we made a deal. I promised you some answers, right?’
He nodded. ‘I just want to know . . . what’s out there, in the War Zone? What was the Captain warning me about?’
Bixa glanced at Mystica before replying. ‘There are . . . rumours,’ she said. ‘But we’re not sure what they mean. See, we came to the Human worlds years ago, searching for a peaceful life.’ She paused. ‘Never did find it.’
‘The problem,’ said Frollix, ‘is it’s real hard to get reliable news through the Spacewall. And it’s even harder to get it from our home system, Aquarius, ’cos it’s under a Human blockade. We have family back there, and this past year, we haven’t heard a word from them. All we’ve heard is . . . rumours.’ He scratched the base of his horns. ‘Weird stories about a wolf that eats the stars—’
‘A wolf?’ said Lucky. A shiver ran through him. ‘How can a wolf eat the stars?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Bixa, in a low voice. ‘But we do know the stars are scared.’
Lucky bit down on his lip. He remembered that vision he’d seen in the astrolabe: those scorching faces, staring back at him. ‘You – you talk about the stars as if they’re alive . . .’
‘They are alive.’
He gaped at her. Surely she couldn’t mean it? ‘Is it true you worship the stars?’ he asked.
Frollix laughed. ‘Worship the stars!’ he scoffed, taking another eyeball. ‘What a typical Groundling idea! No, course we don’t worship the stars. But we love the stars. Without them, there’d be nothing, right? So we’ve got this greeting: From the stars we all came . . .’
‘. . . and to the stars we return,’ said Lucky, completing the phrase he’d heard his mother and Frollix exchange, when they first met.
‘That’s it! You learn quick, for a Groundling! Most Humans are completely ignorant about the stars!’
‘Hey!’ protested Lucky. ‘That’s not true. We have advanced science. We go from star to star, all over the galaxy—’
Bixa rolled her eyes. ‘You think you know everything with your science? There’s more going on in the galaxy than your moonbrained science can imagine! So many things have been forgotten; so much secret knowledge has been lost—’
Mystica coughed. ‘Bixa. Enough. The Humans have their beliefs too, and we should respect them. Please don’t take offence, Lucky. Have another eyeball—’
A siren cut through the cabin. Captain Nox’s voice crackled on the comm.
‘Frollix,’ he called, ‘I need you in the cockpit, now. There’s a Skyhawk on our tail.’
Chapter Twelve
‘What’s a Skyhawk?’ said Lucky, over the wailing siren.
‘The Axxa army’s ships!’ yelped Frollix. ‘When the Spacewall went up, a bunch of ’em got trapped this side of it. They survive by raiding anyone that gets in their way. They’re pirates!’ He scrambled away to join the Captain in the cockpit.
Mystica had gone very pale. She shuffled out of the cabin, whispering something under her breath; perhaps a prayer of some kind. Lucky couldn’t help noticing how slowly and awkwardly she moved, how frail her body seemed.
‘Is she OK?’ he asked Bixa. The spangly flavour of the eyeballs was fading fast.
‘None of your business,’ she snapped, pulling on her body armour, with the glitter and fur. ‘Better strap up. If this really is a Skyhawk, we’re in trouble.’
Lucky strapped himself into his seat as Bixa tapped on the vidscreens. The images of the Twelve Astraeus dissolved, and the cabin walls filled with fragmentary glimpses of the view outside again.
Through a blizzard of static, he could just make out a faraway shape. It was closing in fast. With its viciously curved wings, it looked like a bird of prey, swooping out of the sky.
‘It’s a Skyhawk, all right,’ breathed Bixa, as the Sunfire pitched violently, first to one side, then the other, trying to get away. But slowly, inexorably, the Skyhawk grew bigger on the vidscreens.
‘Can’t we go faster?’ Lucky asked, his chest tightening as if there was rope tied around it.
‘No, we can’t. And see their cannon? If they get much closer, they’ll blow us out of the sky.’
‘Can’t we shoot back?’
Bixa shook her head. ‘The Sunfire has no guns,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I told the Captain a hundred times we need to defend ourselves, but he never listens.’
‘Attention, unknown craft!’ a harsh voice crackled on the comm. ‘We have you in our sights. Identify yourselves.’
‘We’re peaceful civilians,’ Captain Nox’s voice replied. ‘We have no weapons, and we have no quarrel with you. From the stars we all came—’
‘By the authority of King Theobroma and the Axxa army,’ growled the voice, ‘drop your Dark Matter drive and prepare to be boarded!’ The voice crackled off.
Bixa’s needles went pale, as they had before the Shadow Guards. She didn’t look like a fierce, proud warrior any more. She just looked scared.
The motion o
‘Those pirates are coming aboard,’ called Captain Nox on the comm. ‘Bixa, hide the Human. We’re dead if they see him. I’ll do my best to talk our way out of this, but they absolutely must not find him.’
Lucky’s stomach was in knots. ‘But why would they do this to you?’ he said. ‘You’re Axxa, just like they are—’
‘Makes no difference,’ said Bixa. ‘If you’re not part of their army, they won’t think twice about killing you, whoever you are. And if you’re an Axxa harbouring Humans . . .’ She stood up, needles burrowing into her hair. ‘Come on. Let’s get you out of sight.’
She rushed him below decks, into the ship’s hold. He hoped she was taking him to some sort of secret compartment. But as she led him to the small metal cubicle where he’d already spent many miserable hours, he realized that this was where she really proposed to hide him: in the Sunfire’s toilet.
‘But why here?’ he cried.
‘Because it’s the best we’ve got,’ said Bixa, opening the door. ‘We’re civilians – this isn’t a warship.’
Lucky looked at the fold-down metal seat. It was cold and dark in there; and despite all his efforts to keep it clean, it did not smell inviting at the best of times.
‘Get in,’ she urged. ‘And keep your mouth shut. If they find you, we’re finished.’
Lucky shuddered, and crawled into the toilet. The metal door groaned as he pulled it shut, and locked it from inside. He heard Bixa walk away.
He was alone in the dark.
At first, he was just uncomfortable. But then he heard the pirates boarding the Sunfire; heard voices raised in argument; and he was afraid.
‘. . . no threat to you, we have nothing that you need—’
‘Is that right, old man? I reckon we could use your ship. Let’s see what we’ve got . . .’
The pirates weren’t going away. Even Captain Nox was powerless to stop them. Lucky heard compartments and cabins being opened up as they searched the ship.