Glory Lane

Alan Dean Foster

• Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781504067782
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Science Fiction
• Index: Literature

A mind-blowing cosmic adventure from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Adventures of Pip & Flinx.
 
It's just another boring late night in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Seeth, a disillusioned punk rocker with too much time on his hands and too little money. That is, until he heads to a bowling alley and runs into Kerwin, a geeky graduate student who's there doing research for a sociology assignment. While trying to distract Kerwin from his scholarly pursuits, Seeth notices two burly cops trying to unlawfully arrest a lone bowler, and for laughs, he jumps in to save him.
 
When it turns out the bowler, the cops, and even the bowling ball are all different races of aliens involved in an interstellar chase, Seeth and Kerwin find themselves on a ship careening through space—protecting a mysterious, all-powerful lifeform that might possibly be the most valuable thing in the universe.
 
Seeth's found the excitement he wanted. And he didn't even have to leave Albuquerque—just Earth.
 
Praise for Alan Dean Foster
 
"One of the most consistently inventive and fertile writers of science-fiction and fantasy." — The Times (London)
 
"Alan Dean Foster is a master of creating alien worlds." —SFRevu.com
 
"Foster knows how to spin a yarn." — Starlog
 
"Alan Dean Foster is the modern day Renaissance writer, as his abilities seem to have no genre boundaries." — Bookbrowser

IV

Once Rail got started it was hard to turn him off. As he talked, the green fuzz that covered his head rippled like an unripened wheat field in the wind. Kerwin suspected that each ripple conveyed a whole range of feeling, though to him it looked only like blowing grass.

“Part of the problem is that we Prufillians are a very gentle race. We don’t like it when someone else tries to set themselves up as lords of the universe. Besides, the Oomemians have no sense of humor. If there’s anything a Prufillian can’t stand it’s a race with no sense of humor.” He smiled. His teeth were thin and short.

“That’s one reason why I have enjoyed my stay on your world so much. Your kind has a wonderful sense of humor—when you’re not giving vent to your homicidal urges.” He glanced into the rearview mirror. “They think they’re so smart, they do. Cleverer by half than anyone else, especially a lowly Prufillian. They don’t have me yet. We’ll show them a thing or three.”

Seeth continued to leer at Miranda. “Want me to show you a thing or three, creamkiss?”

She was working with her hair. “No thanks. One boring date a night’s enough. Why don’t you just leave? Go on, get out.”

“And where would you like me to get out to, honeylips?”

She made a face. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Why are they after you?” Kerwin asked their driver as the van turned down a narrow track leading through the trees. Something went spang beneath the van. Miranda’s ex-boyfriend wasn’t going to get his machine back in like-new condition.

“Oh, a little of this and a little of that.”

Kerwin couldn’t tell if Rail was being deliberately evasive, was just concentrating on the road ahead, or was actually telling the truth.

“I’m what you’d call a freelance espial.”

“A what?” He turned back to Seeth, who continued to stare over the back of the captain’s chair at Miranda. “You know what an espial is?”

“Sounds like an abbreviation, man. Hey, you’re the college boy. Isn’t that one of your pet words? Some people have dogs and cats, you have words.”

“Not this one.”

“A word you do not know, in your own language.” Rail shook his head and Kerwin assumed it meant the same thing on Prufillia it did on Earth—unless you were from Bulgaria. “That’s something else I love about you humans. Your linguistic diversity. Of course, it has mucked you up no end but I’m sure you’ll straighten it out soon. Who would have thought that any one race could create so many words that mean so little? Could construct elaborate sentences that contradict themselves and yet appear to actually mean something? When you join the galactic community you will make wonderful diplomats.”

“Galactic community?” Kerwin swallowed. “You mean there are others out there besides you and the Oomemians?”

“Certainly. Intelligent life is as common as dirt. There are hundreds of sentient races, maybe thousands. I don’t know the actual number at last count, but there’s an entire administrative department whose job it is to keep track. Occasionally an intelligent race will be bypassed or overlooked by the Development and Integration people. Then they tend to extinct themselves. Terrible waste. Hard to get credit if you extinct yourselves. Bureaucrats.” He shook his head again.

“You’d think advanced computers would be able to keep track of everything, but sometimes they just make it more confusing for us poor organics. Though when you’re trying to keep track of an entire galaxy, you don’t have much choice but to make use of them. You give machines artificial intelligence, next thing you know they want to use the same bathroom. If it was up to me—but nobody asks my advice. Nobody wants to listen to a lowly espial.”

“That still doesn’t tell us why the Oomemians are after you.”

Rail smiled wanly. “It’s all a misunderstanding, of course.”

“Oh. Good. Then you haven’t actually done anything bad.”

“Naw,” Seeth sneered. “He’s innocent as a newborn juniper. Come on, man! Who’s kidding who here? He’s guilty as sin. It’s written all over his face. Or maybe I should say mowed. He’s guilty, I’m guilty, we’re all guilty.”

“Not me,” said Miranda with perfect self-assurance. “I’m not guilty of anything.”

“No? How about being too beautiful?”

“Nobody can be too beautiful.” She said it without attempting to argue his compliment.

Rail dimmed the van’s headlights. “I suppose from the Oomemians’ point of view it’s not a misunderstanding. But I assure you that to the rest of the civilized galaxy I am as innocent as the driven frooflak.”

“So what do they call this misunderstanding?” Kerwin pressed him.

The green fringe on his head moved south. “Not much. Kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?” Kerwin drew back. “Hey, I don’t know how they evaluate crimes where you come from, but here on Earth kidnapping’s not just a ‘misunderstanding’.”

“Relax, my friend. It is what the Oomemians call it, but I am not guilty. Just accused.”

Kerwin breathed a little easier. “Okay then.”

“That’s why they’ve sent those two trackers after me, because they know they haven’t a chance of proving their case to any court. It would be much better for them to avoid the publicity an open trial could produce. In an open proceeding they would have to admit to some things they would prefer to keep secret. In other than an Oomemian court their accusations wouldn’t hold a sorbil.”

Kerwin mulled this over as he took another look in the sideview mirror. Only rarely could he glimpse a glow that might come from pursuing headlights. Rail hadn’t been kidding when he’d told them the Oomemians were persistent.

“If you’re not guilty, we’re going to help you all we can. I don’t like the idea of somebody else picking on an innocent traveler no matter where he’s from.”

“So you didn’t kidnap anybody?” Miranda had finished with her hair and was slipping on her shoes.

“Of course not.” Rail smiled broadly. “I liberated something. You can’t really call it someone.”

Kerwin’s expression fell. “Hold on. You mean, you really did kidnap somebody?”

“I said liberate. Admittedly, it would be up to a court to draw the requisite distinctions. Wonderfully duplicitous, your language.”

“So who or what did you liberate?” Seeth asked him.

“Izmir the Astarach.”

“Got to get a group together. Can’t waste all these names. You got whoever this Izmir is stashed out in the woods somewhere?”

“I refer to it as a he because it makes for simpler semantics. No, he’s right here. He has accompanied us all along.”

Kerwin’s eyes searched the van. “You mean you’ve kidnapped somebody invisible?”

“Hardly. Come on, Izmir, reveal yourself. We’re not playing that game anymore.” With his right foot he nudged the bowling ball that lay close to his leg. It rolled forward slightly and bounced off the engine housing. For the first time all night Seeth and Kerwin wore similar expressions. Kerwin stared hard at their driver.

“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. These Oomemians have tracked you across no telling how many light years and are trying to kill all of us because you’ve kidnapped a bowling ball?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Rail did not appear particularly upset. Maybe, Kerwin thought, he was used to the question. He nudged the ball again. “That’s enough, Izmir. Game’s over, finished.”

“Blitheract,” said the bowling ball quite clearly.

Kerwin gaped at it. He was sure it was the ball that had spoken and not Rail, not unless he was some kind of interstellar Edgar Bergen. Reaching down hesitantly he touched the shiny, almost iridescent curved surface.

“Glumelmerk!” the ball snapped.

Kerwin yanked his hand back. The surface of the ball rippled and flowed, extending a thin black pseudopod that encircled his right wrist. It was as gentle and strong as a baby elephant’s trunk.

“Leave him alone.” Rail added something in an entirely different language. It sounded like radio static.

Obediently, the tendril freed Kerwin’s wrist. He clutched it with his other hand. It tingled from the brief contact. As the three humans looked on, the bowling ball levitated soundlessly and settled down on the drink-holder tray that covered the engine console. As soon as it made contact it silently commenced to explode, surfaces shifting, running down the front of the console, rising toward the ceiling. Tiny explosions were visible within this flexible matrix, small bursts of intense energy.

As the malleable surface continued to flow, the color changed from black to a deep navy blue. The tiny explosions changed from pure white to red, blue, and tangerine, began to run together in glowing strips. The result was something that looked like a giant, animated candy cane. A single large blue eye appeared atop the cylindrical shape. A pair of short arms, each ending in four fingers, extended from the main body to push off from the console. It floated in the space between the chairs, its base rippling like a skirt blowing in the wind, and gazed intently at Miranda.

A few minutes passed before she spoke. “Hey, give it a rest, will ya? First Bowen, then this joker,” she jabbed a finger in Seeth’s direction, “and now you—and I don’t even know what you are.”

“Ffirzzen hobewl menawick.”

Words from several languages or one unknown one, Kerwin thought.

“See, he thinks you’re pretty too,” Seeth told her. “You oughta be flattered, woman.”

She sighed indifferently. “I don’t need the flattery.” Ignoring the exotic alien thing floating less than a foot away, she lifted her arm and eyed the candy-colored Swatch on her wrist. “Jesus, my mother’s gonna kill me.”

Seeth leaned toward Izmir. “That’s not bad, but can you do a real red?”

The blue eye turned toward him by migrating through the fluidlike body. The Astarach promptly turned a bright candy-apple red, the kind of red usually seen on show cars at fancy auto expositions.

“Pretty good. How about matching her watchband?” Izmir became a bright, hot pink. “Wild! How’s that for matching accessories? Every girl needs an alien to go with her handbag. You ever been in a band, man?”

Kerwin eyed the smaller man pityingly. “Seeth, this is an alien lifeform. It doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clearly, the entire cosmos was conspiring to prove that he was the biggest idiot alive, because Izmir the Astarach’s flanks shifted and flowed to form half a dozen unrecognizable shapes. Their purpose was clear enough, however, as the imitated instruments proceeded to fill the van with a discordant but not entirely unpleasant music. Even Seeth was rendered momentarily speechless. But only momentarily.

“When we lose these Oomemians or whatever they are, Arthwit old buddy, I want you to help me get this guy on MTV. I mean, if we can get Stevie Wonder or Dave Stewart to produce for this whatsis, we’re all gonna be rich!”

“I fear there will be no time for that, much as the prospect of such an adventure intrigues me.” Rail was searching the woods now, obviously hunting for something.

Kerwin kept a wary eye on Izmir, who had abandoned his band self in exchange for a shape like a hot fudge sundae, complete with dark brown and white fluids coursing down his flanks. He looked soft, almost rubbery, a feeling enhanced by his obvious flexibility. In actuality the Astarach’s softly glowing body had the consistency of steel, but Kerwin didn’t know that because no way was he going to touch it again.

“Why is he so important to the Oomemians? I mean, he’s pretty and clever, but that doesn’t make him valuable. Does it?”

“Ain’t it obvious, man?” said Seeth. “I mean, he’s an artist. Maybe the greatest artist these Oomemians have ever developed. Or greatest work of art. Yeah, that’s it, he’s got to be a work of art. A continually changing piece of art. He can’t be an artist because he doesn’t look anything like these Oomemians, unless they can do these shape changes too.”

“No, unfortunately for them, the Oomemians, like the rest of us, inhabit the shapes they are born to.” Rail slowed a little more, not wanting to miss something in the dark. “I do not know exactly what Izmir is, but an Oomemian he is not. As to why they consider him so valuable, I really have no idea.”

“You mean, you kidnapped him without knowing why he’s important?” said Kerwin.

“It was enough to know that he is important. Very important. What is stranger still is that, from what I heard and learned, the Oomemians don’t know what he is either. But they guarded him heavily and were studying him intently close, so I figured that if he was that valuable to them he ought also to be valuable to Prufillia. Besides, if nothing else, by borrowing him I could at least deny him to the Oomemians.” Without altering his tone in the slightest he added casually, “It’s all because of the war, of course.”

The short hairs went up on the back of Kerwin’s neck. “War? What war?” Suddenly the wild terrain and the night-shrouded forest, which under ordinary circumstances he would have found threatening and lonely, began to look exceedingly inviting.

“Why, the war, naturally. Ah, here we are. I was starting to get concerned.”

“Uh, I don’t want to sound obtuse,” Kerwin told him, trying to remain halfway calm, “but there’s no road here.”

This observation did noth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• XIV
• A Biography of Alan Dean Foster
• Copyright