Whatever Gods May Be

by George P. Saunders

  "Look;" Valry yelled out a few minutes later, pointing to a place where the beach began to curve inland. "On no, Thalick-" she began, almost choking on her words and unable to finish what she was saying.

  WE NEED GET CLOSER Thalick interrupted, and broke into a run. The breeze that only a short while ago Valry had enjoyed was rapidly becoming stronger and more biting, and by the time Thalick stopped again to look out at the beach, Valry was finding it difficult to stay aboard the Stinger.

  "Do you see anything?" Valry asked, holding her hair out so it wouldn't fly into her mouth.

  Thalick stared disgustedly ahead. All thoughts of the mysterious fireball dropping from the Dark had vanished. A far more pressing problem lay before him.

  THERE, he hissed.

  Valry saw the enormous Jumper leap from the building top into the street. A second later, and the rat disappeared into the surrounding rubble. Valry groaned in despair, realizing what the appearance of the grotesque creature implied.

  "Jumpers" That means Redeyes; A lot of them, I'll bet." she said coldly. "Do you think they know about the tribe?"

  TRIBE FAR AWAY. BUT STILL, TRIBE MUST MOVE. TOO CLOSE TO REDEYE. NO CAN STAY

  Valry was suddenly not feeling very well, and the wind was feeling cold against her skin.

  "But they're so tired, Thalick. We can't leave yet." she pointed out desperately. She could not imagine her sick tribe moving another foot from where it had come to rest in the crescent valley.

  Thalick transmitted nothing further. He studied the city below him. It was the largest one extant that he had come across on the planet. Most of it lay submerged, and tall towers creaking against the growing winds could be seen several miles out at sea. A large section of what had once been a massive bridge lay chopped in two at its center point, leaving a single, enormous tower still vertical and anchored to the seabed. Most of the ruins were the crumbling skeletons of the steel constructed skyscrapers. The concrete buildings were more mounds of decaying limestone near the beach, and the rest of the city that extended inland stopped abruptly at a point which seemed to suggest the earth just swallowed everything else up. A mile and a half away, a large, badly rusted plaque hung from a pole which read: SAN FRANCISCO - CITY BY THE BAY.

  A large waterspout was weaving itself towards shore, smashing into a few imperious skyscrapers still above water. The whine of million year old metal echoed on the wind, making Valry chill even worse than before. She wanted to continue searching for the fireball she had seen, but her constitution was quickly rejecting the idea.

  "Do you want to go on, Thalick?" she asked the Stinger, who was now backing away from the cliff edge as he spotted the ocean twister.

  WE GO BACK, LITTLE ONE. EXPLORE TOMORROW

  Valry clutched herself and nodded, turning her face away from the impressive winds flying up from the ocean.

  As Thalick moved inland again, the winds became less severe, but the skies grew more agitated above. Great, billowing clouds had formed against the normally, placid overcast, and they seemed to be descending at an alarming rate. Though these same clouds were only a few hundred feet above him when he reached the crater's edge that marked the half-way point back to the tribe, Thalick stared apprehensively into the center of it. The semi-enclosed interior of the crater would not be a good place to be if a funnel formed.

  Valry started coughing above him, and Thalick knew that he had to get the girl under shelter as soon as possible. Her weakened immune system was already making her severely ill; another bout with pneumonia could kill her.

  Waiting only a moment longer, Thalick slid down the slope and into the valley below.

  From too much love of living,

  From hope and fear set free,

  We thank with brief thanksgiving,

  Whatever gods may be

  That no life lives forever;

  That dead men rise up never;

  That even the weariest river

  Winds somewhere safe to sea.

  THIRTY

  The day was turning into an exciting one for the Birddog. The caves where it lived, high above the beaches and craggily rocks that were lashed incessantly by the hot seas, provided an extraordinary view of the coastline in any direction, and it was here on the ledge that the mother Birddog would relax for hours, while intermittently attending to her young pups inside. She now looked toward the tortured ruins of the City several miles north, almost completely sunken in the sand or drowned by the rising seas creeping steadily inland. A few tall spires were clearly visible from the Birddog’s cave, persistently refusing to submit to complete decay. From where she was sitting, the ancient skeletons of Man's architectural glory looked like monstrous claws battling to stay above the insistent strength of both land and water slowly devouring them.

  The Birddog growled perfunctorarily at the City; it was the place where the Rats lived - the only natural enemy the Birddog had - along with the ferocious little Blood-Devils that the Men feared so much. It was a bad place, the City, and not one that the Birddog looked at for more than a second. Besides, far more enticing distractions were taking place out at sea which demanded her complete attention.

  The strange, glowing Ball had hurled across the sky that morning, leaving a trail of black smoke behind it before crashing into the ocean a mile away from the Birddog’s cave.

  It did not sink, as the curious Birddog had suspected it would, but instead bobbed on the waves like some enormous, weightless bubble. The Birddog had seen a few meteors in her time flash across the skies, much as the Ball had done, but none of these spectacular fire rocks survived impact, whether on land or in the ocean. Now, as the tide brought the fascinating object to rest against the black sand of the beach below her cave, the Birddog could see quite clearly that the Ball was not only still intact, but it looked as if it had not suffered a single scratch. A perfect sphere, the Birddog found the Ball to be distinctly appealing.

  As fascinated as the mother Birddog was, however, she tempered her curiosity with instinctive wisdom. She did not descend from her caves immediately for a closer look; as harmless as the Ball appeared, like many things in her world that seemed initially nonthreatening, it could well be a perilous menace, just waiting for an impetuous Birddog like herself to make a careless mistake. So, for several hours, she merely curled up at the mouth of her cave and watched the Ball for any signs of activity.

  A neighboring Birddog winged by, yelping a greeting to her along with a few barks of gossip. The Ball had been noticed by the entire Birddog community, which resided in the cliffs facing the deserts and crater regions, and from what the mother Birddog could deduce, it was not regarded with enthusiasm. The visiting Birddog quickly disappeared again, offering a final warning to her to join the rest of the colony and stay as far away from the mysterious Ball as possible. The mother Birddog yapped back a grateful response, but made it clear that she had no intention of leaving her home.

  Most of the Birddog colony lived like swallows in the lower cliffs a mile away, and only the mother Birddog and her four pups had decided on a sea-view habitat. It was an uncharacteristic Birddog option to choose an ocean side cave, since the creatures basically despised water and preferred the dryer mountain hovels only a short distance away. Fellow Birddogs had remained baffled by their alienated colleague; if a monsoon were to develop or one of the giant waves were to attack the beach, the mother Birddog’s home was in an excellent position to be flooded, or at least rendered uninhabitable by these weapons of the enemy Sea. Still, for the past few months, the Birddog had refused to consider returning to the familiar holes of home, and indeed, seemed to have taken a liking to her new cave on the beach.

  Oddly enough, the Birddog like the sea. Her mate had perished over it a year ago during a sudden storm, but regardless, she held no qualms or grudges with the water below her. Perhaps because she entertained secret hopes that her loved one was not truly dead, and that one day the sea might return him to her, the Birddog made a point not to alienate hers
elf from it. The sea had, in fact, become a close friend to the mother Birddog; there was not much to a Birddog life as it was, aside from mating and sleeping a lot, and the gentle roar and crash of the surf below her was a welcome companion that she realized she would never want to live without again.

  Birdogs, like most creatures in the world, were enormous animals. They resembled great, lumbering St. Bernard's, though several times larger than these extinct creatures, with long, leathery wings over ten feet in span and a snake-like tail nearly twice that length. Evolution and mutation had been uniquely kind to Birdogs; powerful and peaceful, they did not suffer some of the more ghastly side effects shared by the majority of Earth's irradiated subspecies, foremost of which was the almost pandemic affliction of insane brutality that gripped most every creature in the world.

  Ironically, if Birdogs were to have a fault, it was in possessing a ridiculous streak of affection which they felt compelled to lavish on anything that wasn't trying to kill them first, and it was this coddling instinct that eventually got the better of the Mother Birdog. To her, the silent Ball lying on the beach was alone and unprotected; there was no telling how long it would be before unfriendly attention would be given to it by the nefarious population in the nearby City.

  Perhaps, the Birdog mused, if she could make friends with the Ball, or at least warn it of its vulnerable position on the beach, the new visitor might stand a chance of escape.

  Stretching and yawning, the mother Birdog nuzzled her pups in the back of the cave. Fast asleep after a meal of regurgitated seaweed, the pups would not demand attention for another couple of hours. This would be plenty of time for the mother to complete her mission of mercy and curiosity.

  Barking a kiss towards the pups, she then spread her massive wings and dived off of the cave ledge.

  Still cautious, the Birdog circled around the Ball several times from a respectable altitude before deciding at last to land. It was a clumsy touchdown, and the Birdog rolled several times in the sand. Since Birdogs had never been noted for their graceful landings, she considered the awkward splat on the beach as perfectly normal.

  Shaking herself off, she lumbered up to dryer beach and tucked her wings behind her. The Ball seemed completely uninterested in her, which if it wasn't terribly exciting, at least told her that it was not interested in attacking. This prompted the Birdog to approach the Ball confidently with a wagging tail and a friendly yap or two.

  The Ball remained silent. The Birdog continued to bark, but to no avail. She resorted to stronger forms of greeting by hopping up and down and flapping her wings to get the thing's attention.

  Suddenly, a small yellow light flickered on the mute Ball's shiny skin. Overjoyed that something had happened, the Birdog increased her yapping and jumping. Another bold impulse made her leap against the Ball's exterior. As she bounced off harmlessly, the Birdog immediately understood that the Ball was not a thing alive, but rather some sort of structure, like the mammoth skyscrapers that comprised the ruins of the nearby City.

  The Birdog was about to begin another session of barking when abruptly her nose and ears twitched in distaste. She snapped her head in the direction of the City, and a snarl curled on her lip. The playful, almost oafish muzzle of the Birdog was now transformed into something ugly and raging. She shifted her position away from the Ball and crouched defensively in the sand. Growling and foaming at the mouth, the Birdog stared at the long length of beach ahead.

  As she had feared, the specks on the horizon was the unpleasant welcoming committee from the City. She could count three rats altogether; obviously only a scouting party, since the main force of the attack would probably come at night when the Redeyes were active. It was a small force to deal with now, but the mother Birdog realized that there were still too many for her to take on without getting killed. Bearing this last regrettable fact in mind, she broke off from her growling and once again focused on the giant Ball. It was still making no attempt at moving and was obviously oblivious to the approaching danger.

  Barking frantically, the Birdog yapped herself hoarse, urging the stubborn Ball off the beach and back into the sea. Desperately, she even threw her full weight several times against the hard exterior, hoping that perhaps she could dislodge the thing enough to send it rolling. All attempts at saving the Ball, however, were meeting with failure, and within moments the Birdog realized that she would have to abandon her cause.

  She again snarled at the Jumpers rapidly bounding over the sand. Had it only been one Jumper to contend with, the Birdog would have been an easy winner. Faced with more than one rat, however, and a Birddog’s life expectancy for more than a few minutes would not be likely. The mother Birdog understood this, but felt a twinge of guilt nevertheless that she could not help the strange, silent Ball next to her. Running down the beach, she launched herself into the air in a takeoff that equaled her landing for awkwardness. She circled once above the Ball, clipping off a last warning bark, then flapped back to her cave directly above.

  Whining anxiously from the cave lip, the mother Birdog watched the hideous Jumpers draw nearer to the Rover. She was only dimly aware of the ache from the bruises she had incurred after flinging herself against it, but the pain gave her some reason to be hopeful. If the Ball could resist her impressive advances, perhaps it could do the same with the rats.

  A few miles away, on top of the highest ruin in the City, two pairs of eyes also watched the unfolding scene below. They, too, wondered if the rats would be able to handle the job before them.

  The eyes, however, had no intention of leaving the matter open to doubt. Already, they were gathering far greater forces at their disposal to deal with the Ball than any a few Jumpers or Birdogs could ever hope to muster.

  * * *

  Hours later, Zolan flopped down into the pilot seat and stared at the control console helplessly. The wire fires had been quickly extinguished, but this was about all he had accomplished after he had awakened. His ship was crippled, probably hopelessly lost in the eternal void of the Hall, without power or guidance control...and all he could do was wait!

  Indeed, until the Rover reactivated its higher programming, there was nothing that could be done. The ship had all but scrapped itself; only life support and a half dozen auxiliary systems requiring battery power, had remained operational. Whatever had damaged the Rover must have been considerable, because a fail-safe deactivation was considered a last resort by the starship. It did, however, leave Zolan completely cut-off from obtaining even fractional information as to what kind of trouble the Rover had encountered to force it to such extremes.

  Presumably, the Rover was still in the Hall, but there was absolutely no guarantee that this was the case. The turbulence had begun just after entrance into the warp and the ship had started losing power almost immediately. Zolan had been unable to control the deviation manually, and the next thing he knew he was on the floor with a sore head, staring up at a roomful of small fires from charred instrumentation.

  During the time he was out, which Zolan guessed to be a few hours, the Rover probably plunged uncontrollably through the Hall. It could still be there, or a million galaxies away from it's last point above Earth. In any case, Zolan would not know until the Rover had bandaged itself sufficiently to reinstate the audio-com line, which would allow him to question the ship directly.

  It was just one more thing, Zolan thought disgustedly, that had gone wrong. Earth was frying by now underneath a nuclear shroud, and he had almost become a permanent resident to that wretched place due to the Rover's miscalculation --and more truthfully, his own. Project Earth had been a botch up from the beginning, but it seemed that one failure was feeding another. Zolan knew that he was completely to blame for his foolhardy attempt at summoning the Hall ahead of schedule arrival. There was no longer any doubt that his damn foolishness had resulted in the warp's rabid behavior and the subsequent disaster to the Rover. At the very worst, the Rover would never be able to restore it's brain core, which mean
t that Zolan would float forever in the Hall or between stars, eventually dying after centuries of enduring the insanity of solitude.

  The most he could look forward to was a severe penalty levied against him by the authorities if and when he returned to the nearest GCPP outpost. If it was discovered that the Hall had inflicted damage to Earth's star system, then Zolan was as good as exiled. Hopefully, the Rover had been able to effect some kind of closure to the sub access that the Hall had formed before it lost control, but that answer would again possibly never be imparted to Zolan if the ship was permanently junked.

  Zolan punched a few useless buttons idly in front of him. Only now, after several hours of check listing what controls were available to him and roaming around looking for possible structural damage, was Zolan able to devote some thought to the weird dream that had come to him. He had suffered a mild concussion, so had dismissed the blurry visions as the byproduct to shock and fever. But some parts of the nightmare remained vivid and disturbing, particularly where the girl was concerned, and it was all he could do-to shake the images of the desperate eyes that had looked to him for assistance.

  One word repeated itself over and over again in Zolan's mind, and he could not shake it. The dream girl Valry had called out a name, a danger that had frightened her. Zolan reminded himself that he had probably only experienced a shock-induced vision fed by hysteria but the throbbing and relentless word echoed repeatedly in his head.

  Resistor.

  Almost casually, Zolan leaned back a few inches and checked the glossary computer at his elbow. Surprisingly, a light flashed meekly on his console indicating that this rather insignificant data bank was not dependant on the higher powerhouse of the Rover's brain. Zolan then remembered that it had been an independent installation that needed only minimal battery power -- the only energy source still functioning on board at this moment.