فصل 59

CHAPTER 59

THE STRUGGLE

THE AIR GREW COLDER as the rocket rose, rushing past Peter’s bare arms and legs and causing him to shiver as he desperately clung to the metal steering-plate. The rocket flew high over the desert now, Maknar barely visible far below. Above, a thousand meteors slashed the sky.

Soon, he thought.

The fuel couldn’t last forever. At some point, the monkey—or whatever was now piloting the rocket—would release the remaining starstuff. If Peter was going to do something, he had to do it now.

He loosened his grip on the metal plate, testing whether he could, for at least a brief burst, fly fast enough to keep up with the speed of the rocket. He wasn’t sure. Perhaps if he used his legs to push off from the metal plate…

He looked up the side of the rocket. The door to the monkey compartment was perhaps thirty feet away. If he could get just that far, he could grab on to the latch. Thirty feet. He had to try.

Carefully, bracing himself against the rocket’s side, he climbed onto the plate. He crouched, tensing his legs, then silently counted: one…two…

THREE!

He pushed off with all his strength. Added to the rocket’s forward momentum, the effort sent him skimming upward. He reached out for the latch, but his hand fell a foot short. The rocket slipped past. He grabbed for purchase, his hands sliding along the cold metal, desperately trying to get a grip. His fingers caught a small ridge where two metal plates were joined. Somehow he held on to it, stopping his slide down the rocket. He squinted up through the cold, blasting wind—the latch was five feet above him. He gripped the ridge and with a grunt heaved himself upward. He flung his hands forward and managed to get his right hand on the latch. He clung to it as his legs swung wildly away from the rocket. He got his other hand on the latch and steadied his body. He yanked the latch; the hatch door swung open.

Peter hauled himself up and peered inside. To his relief, he saw that the rocket was being flown by Franklin, his face pressed to the eyepiece, his hairy hands on the control levers. Peter saw no sign of Ombra; apparently the bright glow from the starstuff compartment was keeping him away, at least for the moment. And there was Tink! She flew to him, chiming something. But Peter had no time to listen. Franklin, intent on earning his banana, was raising an arm toward the red lever that released the starstuff.

“No!” shouted Peter, shoving the screeching monkey away from the controls. He grabbed the levers and, ignoring Franklin’s frantic protests, began to turn the rocket.

Urgent chimes from Tink. Peter glanced to his left and saw the blackness seeping into the monkey’s cage. A tentacle reached for Peter’s shadow. He squirmed to keep it away, at the same time pushing the levers and putting the rocket horizontal. The tentacle touched his shadow. He felt a chill.

“Stop him, Tink!” he shouted, closing his eyes. Even through his eyelids, he could see the flash as Tink filled the rocket with a brilliant light. Peter felt the chill leave him immediately. He opened his eyes; Ombra was gone again, for now. Franklin was gibbering hysterically, temporarily blinded. Tink lay motionless on the bottom of the cage. Peter picked her up and tucked her gently inside his shirt, then returned his attention to the controls. He stuck his head out the open hatchway and, getting his bearings, began steering the rocket back toward Maknar, and the sea beyond.

He glanced back into the cage.

The tentacle was there again. It was slithering forward, reaching for Peter’s shadow. He shifted away, but there was little room to maneuver in the cage, especially with Franklin whimpering in the corner. The tentacle kept coming. Again it touched his shadow; again he felt the cold. He looked out the hatchway; the rocket was still over the desert, too far from the sea. The cold was creeping up inside him. He felt Ombra now, as he had felt him at Stonehenge. Peter had won that struggle, but he was losing this one, the darkness flowing into him through the tentacle attached to his shadow, filling him, taking him over.

“No!” he shouted, resisting, willing his arms to push the levers forward, to put the rocket into a steeper dive. He pushed his head out the window and saw that the city and harbor were closer, but still too far. His eyes fell on a dark shape in the desert. He heard Ombra’s roar of rage and realized that he was hearing it inside his own mind, as Ombra saw—through Peter’s eyes—what Peter was looking at.

Now Peter’s arms and hands were moving. But Peter was not moving them—Ombra was. He was making Peter pull the control levers back.

“No!” Peter shouted, this time at his own hands. But they continued to betray him. The rocket was turning back toward the sky. Ombra was going to make Peter finish the job.

“N—” he started to repeat, but now Ombra had control over even his mouth, and he heard himself say in a ghastly voice, part his and part Ombra’s: “Quiet, foolish boy.” Peter watched in helpless horror as his own hands began to steer the rocket upward, and he realized that as soon as it was vertical again Ombra would make him release the starstuff.

And that realization gave him an idea.

He concentrated on it, keeping it in the tiny part of his mind that was still just Peter, and not Ombra/Peter. He could not let Ombra know there was any of him still free. He would hide inside himself, waiting for his one chance to make his plan work, if it could work at all.

The rocket pointed straight up. Peter saw his right hand reach for the red starstuff-release lever.

Get ready…

His hand grabbed hold of the lever and pulled. As before, there was a blinding flash. And as before, the light flash forced Ombra away. He detached from Peter’s shadow and shrank back into the dark bowels of the rocket. The instant he felt Ombra leave, Peter focused his mind on his right arm and shoved the red lever forward. With a clang the starstuff hatch slammed shut. Peter heard Ombra’s angry roar and an instant later saw the tentacle coming at him in the cage, reaching for his shadow, touching it.

But this time Peter did not try to shift his shadow away.

This time Peter separated from his shadow.

He didn’t know how he did it—not exactly—it was more of an intense feeling than a conscious thought. But suddenly he was on one side of the cage with the screeching Franklin, his shadow on the other. Ombra’s tentacle still grasped the shadow. But now Peter no longer felt the cold.

He was different in other ways as well—very different—but he had no time to consider the changes. He had something else to think about. He stuck his head out the opening, saw the meteor-filled sky above him, the dark desert below, and…

There.

He grabbed the levers, shoving them forward, turning the rocket in a stomach-churning dive. He heard another roar from Ombra, who knew what Peter planned to do. Franklin’s screeches grew suddenly louder. Peter glanced over his shoulder and saw that the dark shape, despite the bright starstuff glow, was billowing into the cage. He turned back to the window, forcing himself to concentrate on steering the rocket…lower, lower, almost to the desert floor and now leveling off, hurtling along the dune-tops toward the target.

“It’s useless, boy.” He heard the hideous groaning voice in his ear, over the howl of the wind. Ombra, unable to get inside Peter through his shadow, was now enveloping him like a cloud. “If you stop this rocket, we will build another.”

Peter said nothing, concentrating on holding the rocket level as it hurtled forward, closer, closer…

“You will not be free of me,” said the groaning voice. “No matter what happens, you will not be free of me.”

Closer…closer…

NOW!

Peter grabbed the shrieking Franklin by the arm and, with all his strength, heaved against the rocket hatch. It came open; he and the monkey flew out, followed an instant later by what looked like a puff of black smoke.

The wind caught Peter and hurled him backward, head over heels. He almost slammed into the sand before he got his bearings and righted himself, just in time to turn and see the rocket.

Its fuel finally expended, the rocket coughed out its last tongue of flame as it hurled directly into the huge, gaping, dark mouth of the Jackal.

And then the desert night exploded.