Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Twin! Twin!” the second head shouted at the top of its squeaky voice, staring at Penny with renewed interest.
“No, I don’t, honestly. I don’t have a, uh, twin,” Penny said hastily. “I was talking about my shipmates. But unfortunately they got caught in a temporal anomaly. I mean, I think they did, anyway. They seem frozen in time and they’re just stuck there.”
“I see.” Granny Two-two nodded, apparently unsurprised to hear this. “And where did you dock, child?”
“Back that way—at the end of the station.” Penny pointed down the long metal corridor, back the way she’d come.
Granny Two-two shook her head and clucked her tongue.
“Well, no wonder you got stuck in a time-suck if you docked down there! Why, nobody’s used that end of Hell’s Gate for the past thirty cycles at least, ‘cause the sucks are so bad.”
“Time-suck! Time-suck!” her second head crowed.
“Hush, you.” Granny Two-two swatted at it again. “The wonder of it is,” she went on, talking to Penny. “That you got out at all. Most folks get stuck in a suck the minute they try to dock and then that’s the end of them, don’t you know.”
“No, I didn’t know or we never would have docked there,” Penny said. “Please, can you help me? My, uh, friends got stuck in kind of an awkward position and the part of the ship they’re in is where the communications devices and viewscreen are. Is there any way to get them free from the, uh, time-suck?”
“’Fraid not, dearie.” Granny Two-two shook her head and the second head shouted,
“Not! Not!”
“Not unless you can move as fast as a quick-loris, anyway,” Granny Two-two went on, after swatting at the second head again.
“A quick-loris? What’s that?” Penny asked.
“Come with me, dearie, and I’ll show you.” Turning, the old woman stamped off down the corridor in the direction Penny had been heading in the first place.
There didn’t seem to be anything else she could do but go with the old lady. So, with a final sidelong glance at the Keeper, which was still faintly hissing, Penny followed Granny Two-two down the hall.
Ten
Penny had been wondering how the old woman had snuck up on her when the corridor was so completely empty, but she soon had her answer. Granny Two-two only walked a few steps up the vast hallway before scuttling behind an abandoned kiosk.
Following close behind, Penny saw her disappear into what appeared to be a large ventilation shaft. It was lit from within by a dull green glow that seemed to come from a kind of moss that grew along it walls.
The shaft just barely brushed the curly gray hair at the top of Granny two-two’s second head, but Penny had to duck to go into it. Though she was only 5’3, being around the little old lady made her feel positively tall.
Granny Two-two went at a quick pace, shuffling along the square ventilation shaft with surprising speed. After a moment the shaft branched and she took the right branch without hesitation and kept going. It branched again and she went left. And on and on they went until Penny was thoroughly lost.
It suddenly occurred to her that Granny Two-two might be leading her to her doom. But if that was so, why would she have saved Penny from the awful Keeper? Anyway, at this point she was committed to following the old lady—there was no possibility of finding her way back on her own. And there was nothing but the vast empty corridor, even if she could.
Reluctantly, Penny kept going.
She was just beginning to wonder when they were ever going to stop when Granny Two-two turned left again and popped suddenly out into the open.
“Careful now,” Granny Two-two said as Penny followed her out of the shaft. “This suck’s been stable for a long time but you never can tell with sucks—gotta take a caution with them.”
“Take a caution! Take a caution!” her second head agreed, blinking at Penny.
Looking around, Penny saw that they were standing on the perimeter of a huge room—as big as an airplane hangar. The room was filled with people and they seemed to be having some kind of a party—at least if the fancy clothing and the people caught in the act of what she assumed was dancing was any indication.
But everyone in the room was frozen—everyone except for her and Granny Two-two, that was.
“Oh my God,” Penny whispered, putting a hand to her chest. “What is this?”
“This, dearie, was the New Millennium party which happened nigh-on fifty cycles ago. Everybody who was anybody in Hell’s Gate was there. I would have gone myself, but I was too young. My Mam is here, so she is, and likewise my Pap.”
“Your parents are in this crowd?” Penny asked, aghast.
“Why, sure they are, dearie. Just there.”
Granny Two-two pointed at a couple in the crowd, both of which were extremely short, just like she was. Neither of them had a second head but Penny could still see the family resemblance to their daughter in their faces.