Indigara firebird novell.., p.1
Indigara: Firebird Novella, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
PART TWO
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
PART THREE
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART FOUR
Chapter 1
About the Author
WELCOME TO INDIGARA . . . A STRANGELY FAMILIAR, STRANGELY HYPNOTIC WORLD.
Jet and her robot dog, Otis, have been taken with Jet’s two sisters—one of whom has a role in the latest Super-Movie—to their planet’s film capital, Ollywood. Jet and Otis are soon catapulted into the unplumbed underworld that lurks below the studios and lots. Here lies the beautiful and sinister otherwhere of Indigara, which has spontaneously generated from the sets, costumes, models and actual celluloid of rejected pilot fantasy and SF movies that never got made into series. Even while girl and dog try to survive the dangers and terrors below, their Indigaran mirror images have replaced them, and are running amok in the real world above . . .
Tanith Lee’s trademark combination of unique world-building, humor, and action make Indigara a five-star success!
INDIGARA
OR, JET AND OTIS CONQUER THE WORLD
Tanith Lee
ISBN 978-0-14-240922-0
Ages 12 up October 2007
192 pages Territory: W00
5” x 7” $11.99 (NCR)
Praise for Tanith Lee
“Tanith Lee has given us a map to the outer limits of imagination.”—Washington Post
“Lee continues to distinguish herself with her ability to bring flesh and blood to the worlds of the future.”
—Science Fiction and Fantasy Review
“Restores one’s faith in fiction.”—The Guardian
”One of our very best authors.”—Locus
BOOKS BY TANITH LEE
The Birthgrave Trilogy The Birthgrave Vazkor, Son of Vazkor Quest for the White Witch
The Blood Opera Sequence Dark Dance Personal Darkness Darkness, I Scarabseque, The Girl Who Broke Dracula
The Claidi Journals Wolf Tower Wolf Star Wolf Queen Wolf Wing
The Elaidh Stories Girls in Green Dresses The Sea Was in Her Eyes
The Four-BEE Series Don’t Bite the Sun Drinking Sapphire Wine
The Jaisel Stories Northern Chess Southern Lights
The Journals of St. Strange The Story Told by Smoke Old Flame
The Lionwolf Trilogy Cast a Bright Shadow Here in Cold Hell
The Novels of Vis The Storm Lord Anackire The White Serpent
The Piratica Books Piratica Piratica II: Return to Parrot Island
The Secret Books of Paradys The Book of the Damned The Book of the Beast The Book of the Dead The Book of the Mad Doll Skulls
The Secret Books of Venus Faces Under Water Saint Fire A Bed of Earth Venus Preserved
The S.I.L.V.E.R. Series
The Silver Metal Lover Metallic Love
MORE BOOKS BY TANITH LEE
Tales from the Flat Earth Night’s Master Death’s Master Delusion’s Master Delirium’s Mistress Night’s Sorceries
The Man Who Stole the Moon The Origin of Snow
The Unicorn Trilogy Black Unicorn Red Unicorn Gold Unicorn
Other Titles Animal Castle The Castle of Dark Companions on the Road and the Winter Players (Novellas) Cyrion (story collection) Prince on a White Horse Day by Night Days of Grass Death of the Day The Dragon Hoard Dreams of Dark and Light (story collection) East of Midnight Electric Forest Elephantasm Eva Fairdeath Fatal Women (story collection) Forests of the Night (story collection) The Gods Are Thirsty The Gorgon and Other Beastly Tales Heart-Beast A Heroine of the World Kill the Dead L’Amber Lycanthia, or The Children of Wolves Mortal Suns Nightshades: Thirteen Journeys Into Shadow (story collection) Princess Hynchatti and Some Other Surprises (story collection) Red As Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer Reigning Cats and Dogs Sabella, or The Blood Stone Shon the Taken Sung in Shadow Tamastara, or The Indian Nights Unsilent Night (prose and poetry collection) Vivia When the Lights Go Out WhiteAs Snow Women As Demons (story collection)
FIREBIRD
WHERE SCIENCE FICTION SOARS™
FIREBIRD Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Center, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2007
Text copyright © Tanith Lee, 2007
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Lee, Tanith.
Indigara / by Tanith Lee.
p. cm. Summary: When her annoying older sister gets a bit part in a movie,
fourteen-year-old Jet and her family travel to Ollywood--the movie capital of their earth-like
planet--where, on a trip through the city’s subways, Jet and her robot dog Otis are transported
to a world of rejected fantasy and science fiction movies and must try to find their way back to reality.
[1. Motion picture industry--Fiction. 2. Diaries--Fiction. 3. Science fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.L5149In 2007
[Fic]--dc22
2007014463
eISBN : 978-1-436-26522-5
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
In memory of all those wonderful pilot movies that never became series.
And with endless thanks to John Kaiine for the scenario, and Shostakovich and Holst for the music—Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1, the second movement; Holst’s ballet from The Perfect Fool
Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine.
—“The City in the Sea,” Edgar Allan Poe
PART ONE
OTIS’S DISKRIPT
The problem was that on that day I was supposed to go in for my half-yearly service.
The company, S C Deluxe, had smailed the Latters. But at the last moment, of course, Turquoise’s role was confirmed in the top-budget movie Fall of Super Troy. There was no way at all that the parental Latters would miss taking Turquoise and her sisters to Ollywood. And so my appointment was canceled. Naturally all Simulate Canine products are guaranteed for each full year, even if a single service is missed. It should, however, preferably not be missed. Tiny things can go wrong, as S C Deluxe’s manual informs all proud owners of a robot dog. But, as so often happens, the Latters had only skimmed the manual, and it goes without saying no one consulted me.
Instead, everything was gotten ready in a rush, and two days after, we were all aboard transocean flight 701 XY. Though I, of course, traveled in a crate in the hold.
Jet’s Journal
One day I shall kill Turquoise. I’ll boil her in honey and spread her on the front lawn. Or I’ll drown her in a vat of warm bottled water and her most expensive shampoo. Or—
Or maybe I’ll kill Amber first.
Yes. That’s the best idea.
Save Amber from herself.
Because Amber is already awful, and in another year or so Amber is going to be just as bad—unbelievable, but a fact—or worse. Than Turquoise.
Basically Turquoise is eighteen and Amber is sixteen.
People seem to change at about sixteen. Or they both did. Though I don’t mean people actually, I mean sisters. Mine.
I am fourteen, and when I was ten and Amber was twelve and Turquoise was fourteen, we were all fine, or so I thought. Then one day Turquoise turned into a bitch-on wheels, and Amber, who was fourteen, and I, who was twelve, said, What has gotten into that damn Turquoise? This day was, in fact, about two months after Turquoise’s sixteenth birthday, when we all went to Dazzleland. And since then Turquoise has gone from worse to worstest. But meanwhile Amber became sixteen, and on her very birthday I thought, What has gotten into that damn Amber? She is a bitch on wheels.
Sometimes I wonder if it will happen to me when I’m sixteen. But if it does, there’ll be only me to wonder what’s gotten into that damn Jet, who will then be a b-on-w.
No, I don’t think it’ll happen to me.
I’m not like them at all.
I mean, Turquoise is tall and curvy and has long, long blond hair and huge blue (turquoise, you see) eyes. And Amber is tall and more curvy and has blue eyes and red (amber, you see) hair.
And Jet (me) is short and skinny and has wiry very black (yeah, you guessed it, jet black) hair and (jet black) eyes. And while my sisters are, I have grudgingly to admit, stunning to l
Which is, frankly, more than enough to cope with.
Sometimes I think of the old story of Cinderella, in a new form. There is the one poor Ugly Sister, jet black Cinder-hairy, bullied and lorded over by the two horrible Beautiful Sisters, and if anyone’s going to the Ball, it isn’t going to be Cinder-hairy. Anyway, you wouldn’t catch me in a glass slipper. Not with my big feet.
I suppose you could say the Ball happened for Turquoise, at least, last Fiveday, when the smail came in that said she’d landed the part in the movie FOST.
Oh, the scenes. She cried for joy and so did Mom and Dad, and so did Amber. But then she got jealous and cried without joy in the downstairs bathroom with the shower running so no one could hear her sniffling—I want it— I want to be in movies—only I did hear.
And what did I do? Nothing.
And in the end Mom said to me, “Honey, aren’t you pleased Turquoise is going to play Helenet’s Third Damsel in Fall of Super Troy?”
And I said, “Sure.”
And Amber, just out of the shower, said, “My eyes are red because soap went in them, but Jet’s just a jealous, nasty little kid. Everything always has to be about her.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m really jealous. I’d rather be eaten alive by a crocodile with blunt teeth than play Third Damsel to Helenet.”
And Mom said, “Oh, girls.”
And Dad said, “Just going for a round of golf.”
And Mom said, “Only think, Jet, we’re all going to fly out to Ollywood. Now isn’t that exciting?”
“Sure,” I said.
Is it?
Exciting?
I mean, perhaps it is.
Only I know how it’ll go.
It’ll be Turquoise this and Turquoise that and don’t upset Turquoise and nobody make a noise because Turquoise is learning her lines with her electro learn-a-lot, and now we must go to this showbiz party that will last until seven the next morning earthclocktime, and where everyone will be all over Turquoise and perhaps Amber, and Mom and Dad will drink champagne Sec (or Sick, as I call it) and get giggly and hold hands or dance together to some old, ancient music by Coldplay or Eminem, and no one will say a word to me and I will be so completely glad they don’t as I will have died, due to boredom or Mom-Dad embarrassment.
But I guess it’s exciting.
Ollywood is the movie capital on Planet Obelisk.
It’s called after some long-ago old actor. Horrel Lardy, I think was his other name. And he was two people. No, that’s not right . . .
Anyhow it’s now one in the morning, earthclocktime. And I have my last class in school tomorrow. Where Georgis and Scott can really ignore me properly before this semester ends.
Night, all. Night, Otis.
(I like Otis. He switches off circuits at night to pretend he’s asleep.)
Otis is a gentleman. Even if he’s a dog. (His fur, in this low light, is all tufted and silvery.) A robot dog, Deluxe.
STUDIOCITY: OVERVIEW
Flight 701 XY lands with a slight bump, for which the robo-pilot apologizes. Apparently there is a flood of weed-guano on the runway. Since weed-guano can spring up inside of five minutes, despite the wonders of technology, no one can ever quite get ahead of it.
A polished, nine-seater slinkousine picks the Latters up from the airport. They are by now escorted by two execs and one producer’s assistant from the studios.
But there has already been a press rush.
Turquoise has been cameradioed for twenty minutes, posing this way, now that, speaking of how happy she is to have been chosen for Third Damsel. An exec finally detaches Turquoise, and she and everyone else are whisked away in the slinko to their hotel in Studiocity. Their luggage follows in another vehicle. Otis, still in his crate, is included with this, but in the trunk.
Studiocity lies behind seventy-foot-wide, two-hundred-foot-high gates of platinebony, under red banners that carry in gold the Studiocity logo: DREAM-SPINNERS TO THE PLANET.
Desert palms and forest cedars also tower hundreds of feet high along the broad white Avenue of Fame and Fortune. Classical-looking buildings soar on all sides. The perfect weather-controlled sky is the deepest blue.
Then the hotel building appears.
It is shaped like a gigantic white swan.
High on the vast curved neck, two golden eyes in the swan’s head are the windows of a colossal banquet-ballroom.
“Oh,” says Turquoise.
“Ohh,” says Amber.
Mom murmurs to Jet, “Look at that, honey.”
Jet says, “Oh sure. The duck.”
OTIS’S DISKRIPT
Unfortunately the Latter house robot had not packed me very well. Had I not been switched off for the journey, I could have put this right, but Mr. Latter had insisted I switch off before packing. He gets nervous about all property.
The result of the mistake was that no sooner did my auto-system wake me in the hotel, switch me back on, and I stood up, than my left hind leg fell off.
I was forced to spend several minutes trying to make the in-apartment robot understand what was needed. The machine seemed to believe I was human and so called a medic. Then it became certain I was an animal-dog and called a vet. Just after the proper maintenance had arrived, and my leg was being put right, two men with a stretcher burst in, soon followed by the vet.
