Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next several minutes or… however long it was, were a blur.

Igon Siruss’s team was highly coordinated, restricted, apparently, only by the fact that they seemed to want to take the spatio-temporal agent alive. For now, at least. Siruss struck him as someone who could easily change his mind about such niceties.

So for now, Valerian ran. He scrambled onto the virtual representations of expensive antiques, launching his rubber-soled feet off the heads of ancient alien rulers to scrabble atop a roof. He ran across illusionary old tiles, unable to see his own body—well, most of it, anyway. He tried to judge if his single available arm was strong enough to grab onto a thick, dangling creeper and swing from one faux rooftop to another—or in one case, crash through a window right in the middle of what appeared to be a formal ceremony involving priceless dishware, which he shattered.

“It’s okay,” he shouted back over his shoulder, “remember, they’re only virtually real dishes!”

This appeared to be of no comfort to the six-legged gray-green alien merchant, who waved four of her legs at him and grated out something blistering.

Valerian had not had a lot of time to study the map, but it had been enough to let him know this place had vertical subway cars—and where they were located. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was at this point, but “up” was an excellent direction as it would be at least somewhat harder for Igon’s henchmen to give chase. “Up” would also get him back to the main level, which was the only way to reach the gate and safety. He couldn’t risk getting into a car—but he sure as hell could get on one.

And there was one of the lines, not too far ahead. No convenient car was in sight, though—not yet. “Keep the faith,” Valerian muttered to himself as he kept running. And sure enough, when he was only a few strides away, he was rewarded with the sight of a car crowded with tourists, all with faces—or what served as faces—pressed to the clear sides of the car and oohing and aahing at the view.

They were not oohing and aahing thirty seconds later when Valerian leaped and clung as best he could with his own face pressed to the side of the car. They drew back, startled. Some started to laugh and one of the kids made faces at the Sleeve with both his mouths.

Valerian couldn’t risk craning his neck to look around, as any movement might dislodge his tenuous grip. Nonetheless, he found the fact that he was not being fired upon an encouraging sign indeed.

He made it to the top and leaped off, threading his way through the unexpected volume of tourists. This level was obviously the equivalent of a checkout line. Bored-looking aliens and several humans wrapped up objects of all shapes and sizes. Once wrapped, each item went into a gray box bolted into the flooring.

“What’s this called again? A transmitter?” came a familiar voice. Just before he high-tailed it in the other direction, Valerian recognized the distinctive voice and bright red hair of the female half of the tourist couple he’d seen earlier.

“A transmatter,” the checkout person said. He was human, angular and tired-looking, with thinning hair and a forced smile. He’d probably had to repeat the words a thousand times a day. Valerian wished him well with the thousand and first.

“Oh, a transmatter, sorry,” apologized the red-headed human female. She and her husband were among the throngs of shoppers that Laureline passed, scanning the crowd for Valerian.

“It allows any object to be sent from one world to another,” the checkout person said in a monotone. “Please punch in the code you were issued with your ticket, and it’ll be waiting for you safe and sound upon your return after your exciting visit to the magnificent Big Market, the premier place for galaxy-sized bargains.”

The male tourist punched his code into the machine, and the object disappeared, dispatched to Earth, or Alpha, or wherever else the couple called “home.”

“Amazing!” cried the woman. “And so practical!”

The man did not look as enthusiastic as his wife. His face was red and sweating beneath the visor of his yellow and black helmet. “So useless, you mean,” he grumbled. “You don’t even know what you’ll do with the darn thing!”

“Oh, don’t be such a grouch, honey! It’s…” the female fumbled for a word, “…decorative. Try to be civilized for once!”

Her husband looked around. Briefly caught by the domestic drama, Laureline noticed his gaze fastened on one group of aliens, then another, then a third.

“Civilized?” he sneered arrogantly, his lip curling in barely concealed disgust. “Yeah, sure.”

Major Gibson’s voice sounded in Laureline’s ear. It was a diversion from the unpalatable display of bigotry she’d just witnessed, but the instructions were not welcome.

“Sergeant?” Gibson snapped. “Back to base, Sergeant. Immediately.”

“I can’t abandon my partner out here,” Laureline replied, still scanning the crowd.

“That’s an order, Sergeant.”

Laureline bit her lip in frustrated annoyance and concern. Her gaze traveled back to the outer wall. Reluctantly, she started heading in that direction. But as she maneuvered through the press of satisfied, and most likely broke, tourists, she asked, “Valerian? Do you copy? Answer me!”

“I hear you loud and clear,” came a welcome voice. Laureline let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

“There you are!” she exclaimed with equal parts annoyance and relief. “It’s about time! What the hell are you doing?”

Laureline headed back toward the outer wall, casually taking a gun off one of the Siirt guards so smoothly he didn’t even notice.

“Shopping,” came Valerian’s voice.

Laureline glanced at the gun she’d just filched and thought it more likely that she was the one doing the “shopping.”

“Are you safe and sound?”

There was a long pause—long enough for Laureline’s heart to resume its previous position in her throat.

“…Almost!” His voice wasn’t quite a squeak, but it was definitely higher than usual. The words were immediately followed by gunfire.

Without breaking stride, Laureline immediately turned around and headed back to help.

But Gibson had, of course, been monitoring her, and her abrupt U-turn had not gone unnoticed. His voice came to her, clipped and angry.

“Turn around, Sergeant. The mission takes priority. We need the converter!”

Laureline lowered her chin in a gesture of stubbornness her wayward partner would have immediately recognized, had he not been, it seemed, in dire need of rescue, and kept going.

“Agent Laureline! What are you doing?”

“I won’t be a minute,” she promised.

“Sergeant! Back to base—it’s an order!”

Agonized, she obeyed. Valerian was close; he’d said so. But she’d be ready to spring into action if she heard anything more from him that warranted it.

“On my way!” she replied, trotting back to the wall, thinking, I hope I just haven’t made a terrible mistake…

Valerian raced to the end of a street that led to a wall that was wonderfully, magnificently solid. Not just any wall— the wall, the outer wall of the compound. He had never thought chunks of rocks piled atop one another could be so beautiful. He almost wanted to kiss it.

He perused the wall, wondering if he could get over it in time. It was old and weatherworn, if thick, so he could easily find footholds…

And then he thought of the oversized shoebox attached to his arm and realized it would be impossible to climb with just his right hand. He swore, colorfully. Nonetheless, he gave it a try. He had no other option. He extended his left arm and pulled himself up, scrabbling for toeholds and bracing himself with the Sleeve-encased arm while attempting to cling and release with the other. It was every bit as frustrating as he had anticipated.

Frustrating, and potentially deadly. Could he reach the gate? He turned, intending to start following the wall, to see how far away it was, and his eyes widened.

The bright sunlight that marked the end of the street was blocked by two familiar silhouettes: the tall, angular shapes of the Kodhar’Khans, and the shorter, compact, scampering ones that meant Pit-Ghors. Even as Valerian stared at them, they saw him, too. They lifted their weapons and began to fire.

Desperately, Valerian turned back to the wall, and his eye fell on something dark. A shadow… in the wall.

A hole.

A beautiful, glorious square hole where someone had removed one of the carved stone bricks. And with a little luck…

He crouched down beside it. Yes! He wriggled inside it. For an instant, he used his free hand to help maneuver, and immediately realized he’d lost the pearl. As if in slow motion he watched it roll back toward the entrance. Swearing under his breath, Valerian lunged forward, his fingers closing around it. He yanked his hand back, feeling hot breath on it as a Pit-Ghor’s gargantuan teeth snapped a bare inch away. Just then he heard a voice next to his ear.

“Need some help?”

Laureline!

She slid down next to him and they pressed tightly together in the hole. Normally, that would be a pleasant thing, but at the moment he had something a bit more important to worry about. “Just want my arm back, thanks.”

The Pit-Ghors made horrible sounds as they were unleashed and hurtled toward Valerian. He squeezed the trigger and a volley of bullets sped toward the creatures. They gave the Pit-Ghor equivalent of a whimper and fled back the way they had come.

Laureline opened a small flap in the side of the Sleeve. A bunch of fibers spilled out. She hunkered down and took hold of the jumble of wires and immediately began to repair them.

She was smiling as she said, “I suppose if you’re going to ask for my hand, you’d better get your own hand back first.”

He’d been peering down the various avenues of attack, but now his head whipped back to look at her, a hopeful smile on his face. “Is that a yes?”

Laureline looked up at him with those eyes and said only, “Don’t move.”

He attempted to oblige, but then he realized that the Pit-Ghors hadn’t actually retreated. They had simply run around the block and were now charging at the object they could see—the Sleeve—from the other side. Valerian swiveled his arm and fired at them.

“Cut that out!” Laureline reprimanded. “How can I fix you if you keep moving?”

“If you don’t hurry, there won’t be anything left to fix!”

Valerian fired into the charging pack. They dropped, but then he heard an awful, final click-click and realized with a sinking feeling he’d just run out of ammo. If there were any more, or if the guards came after him—

“There, that’s better! Don’t move!” said Laureline, peering deep into the mechanical entrails of the Sleeve.

Valerian’s gaze darted to each place where an attack might come. It had flickered back to the pile of dead Pit-Ghors when one of them shuddered, gnashed its sharp teeth, and started to drag itself to its feet. It shook itself, then its eyes refastened on the Sleeve, and it started to lurch toward them, gathering speed with every step.

“Faster, Laureline!” Valerian yelped. “There’s one coming this way and I’m out of ammo!”

“I’m doing my best, Major!”

“Do it faster!”

Laureline threw her hands up in the air. “Want to do it yourself?”

“Laureline, dammit, they are coming. Put your hand back on that thing!”

Somehow that didn’t come out sounding quite right.

“All right, so stop complaining and hold still.”

Valerian’s mouth was dry. He didn’t mind facing danger. He minded facing danger with an empty weapon. Major Gibson’s voice sounded in his ear.

“You’ve been detected,” the major was shouting. “Split up!”

Splitting up was pretty much impossible at the moment. Valerian’s heart jumped into his throat as he saw that the wounded Pit-Ghor heading for him had company. Some of his buddies had also recovered sufficiently to get to their feet and were closing in on Valerian.

“There’s three of them now!” he told the major. “I can’t hold them much longer.”

“A few more seconds, Major,” Laureline chimed in. Her fingers were flying over the snake pit of wires, and her face was still and set in concentration.

“Attack!” shouted a guard.

Laureline snapped the case closed. Her eyes blazed as she looked into Valerian’s.

“You’re good!”

“Thanks!”

Even as he spoke he was rolling to one side, dodging the attack from the first Pit-Ghor. It overshot him and wheeled around, lunging at the oh-so-tempting Sleeve with its fangs bared. Valerian stopped breathing as he jabbed his fingers down, punching in the numbers on the keypad.

His arm disappeared and the Pit-Ghor sprawled pathetically in the dirt, its great jaws snapping down on only air.

Valerian pulled his arm out of the Sleeve and touched it. He’d had so much of virtual reality today he felt he had to make sure it was still there. He grinned and squirmed out of the hole, then pulled off his helmet, throwing it away and shaking his hair.

“Okay? You got everything?” asked Laureline, following him and grabbing the case that contained the converter. “Can we go now?”

Without waiting for an answer, she hastened back toward the eastern gate, and Valerian was hot on her heels.

“Your cover’s blown,” came Gibson’s voice in their ears as they ran. “Zito’s friend’s screen just flashed your images. Keep moving. Don’t change course.”

“We don’t intend to,” Laureline stated.

Igon Siruss did not often move swiftly, and even when he did, it was not particularly fast. His guards had notified him that they had Agent Valerian trapped, and he had come with mild rapidity. Now he stood at the end of the street, but all he saw were some unhappy-looking guards and some dead—or baffled—Pit-Ghors, who scampered around, futilely sniffing the ground.

“Sorry, boss,” one of his Kodhar’Khans said.

“He made it to his world,” another supplied. “We’re not sure how, but he did.”

Fury welled inside Igon. His first impulse was to rip the guards apart with his bare hands. He could; it was messy and he preferred to leave that sort of thing to others, but he certainly could.

But no. There would be time to deal with them later.

He had learned a human saying a long time ago: Revenge is a dish best served cold. Most of the time, Igon found this to be true. But not today.

Today, he wanted his revenge swiftly, speedily, and preferably bloodily.

“Bring me a Megaptor!” he roared.