The Nex

by Tim Pratt

  I told myself the Dagonite was just a big frog. I’d dissected one of those in biology class, and while some of the other girls had flapped their hands and shrieked, I hadn’t seen the big deal – I mean, I’d helped my Dad cut up chicken carcasses, and frogs were probably even stupider than chickens.

  Of course, this frog had a bracelet. This frog had a culture.

  But it was already dead. And if Howlaa could imitate a Dagonite next time, maybe she’d have an alternative to killing them. I jabbed in the syringe and pulled back the plunger, a swirl of blackish-red fluid filling the cylinder. “Is this enough?”

  “That will do,” Wisp said.

  Howlaa beckoned, took the syringe, and squirted a long stream of blood into her mouth, closing her eyes for a moment as if to savor it, the way my Mom used to do with wine, before she got into the habit of guzzling the stuff instead. Howlaa’s eyes opened, and she said, “Now chuck the dead thing out of the airlock.”

  “Sorry, but I draw the line at corpse disposal. Besides, you said the skin was poisonous.”

  Howlaa sighed. “Only as poisonous as the skin of a mango -- not a real problem unless you bite a few dozen of them to death. But fine.” She twisted more levers, and told me to take the helm again. “Don’t touch anything.”

  “If I’m not supposed to touch anything, why am I sitting there?”

  “Because otherwise Wisp will get nervous.” Howlaa opened the airlock and wrestled the dead Dagonite away while I sat quietly and didn’t touch anything, even when the sonar thing began to beep and boop very insistently.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Wisp said.

  When the airlock opened again and Howlaa returned, once more soaked, I pointed wordlessly to the black-and-white screen. Howlaa came over, leaned down, and peered at it. “Huh,” he said. “Wisp, you remember those caves we found under here when we were after those cannibals?”

  I wondered if Howlaa would be considered a cannibal if she ate something while she was in the same physical form as that something, but decided maybe now wasn’t the best time for philosophy.

  “Yes,” Wisp said.

  “We’d better find them, and soon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I’m reading this screen correctly, there’s a steam colossus standing in the water just ahead, and I’d rather not be stepped on today.”

  “You can’t turn into a steam colossus?” I said. “And, you know, have an epic monster fight?”

  “The colossi don’t have blood,” Wisp said. “They have... steam. They’re seven-eighths machine. I can’t possess them, either. Howlaa defeated one, years ago, when the colossus went rogue – she became small, infiltrated the mechanism, and destroyed the armored vat-grown brain inside. But it took most of a day to kill the creature, and we don’t have that kind of time.”

  “There are only half a dozen colossi in all of the Nex,” Howlaa complained, making the fish turn hard to the right. “What are the odds that one would be standing around here?”

  “Maybe it was coming to Merrill for repairs or upgrades. Whatever the reason, I’m sure the Regent has it looking for us now.”

  “Not much chance of it finding us, any more than I could pluck a protozoa from a puddle at my feet, but if we pass too close it might have proximity sensors online... Caves it is.” Howlaa focused on the cockpit, muttering about lost time and too much distance and useless worthless jump-engines. I settled back down on my unpleasant bench, scared but also a little regretful that I wouldn’t get to see a steam colossus, whatever it was – I imagined a giant mecha robot suit, the kind you see in Japanese cartoons.

  “We were hoping to cover more ground underwater – the caves will be slower – but at least they’re relatively protected.” Wisp paused. “From the Regent, anyway. They’re not particularly well-protected against the things that live in the caves.”

  “They’re our brothers-in-arms, Wisp,” Howlaa said, tone full of mockery. “Brave souls standing against the Regent, determined to live as free creatures on their own terms. I’m sure they’ll embrace us with open arms. Or open tentacles. Or mandibles. Here we are.” The fish slowed in its whooshing onrush, and I leaned over to look out the windows, where something that might have been an underwater mountain or the roots of an island became clear. There were big black holes in the rock, from the size of a person to the size of a house, and Howlaa aimed the fish toward one of the biggest. Soon we were in total blackness, without even the murky light from the frozen nuclear sun above, and the fish’s interior was lit only by Wisp’s glow. The fish scraped its metal belly on rocks a few times with horrible shrieks of metal, and the sweating in the head became more of a shower.

  “Tighter than I remember,” Howlaa said. “But then, I was traveling under my own power last time.”

  Finally the fish ran aground completely, and Howlaa cursed and smacked the controls. “End of the line. Everybody out.” She flung open the hatch and went into the airlock without closing the door behind her, which meant we’d emerged into someplace dry, unless Howlaa had decided to drown me.

  I followed Wisp out of the airlock, into your basic damp natural cavern. The metal fish was half-submerged in a pool of water and half-shredded against rock, several of its serrated teeth broken and gleaming in Wisp’s light. Howlaa hopped down to the rock, and I followed more cautiously. There were tunnels branching off from this cavern, and I hoped some of them led to light and food and maybe a place to take an afternoon nap, though I wasn’t too hopeful about any of those.

  “Which way was it?” Howlaa said, but before Wisp answered, we all noticed the glows approaching from the tunnels before us, shifting blue-green specks and spirals in the dark.

  “Underdwellers,” Wisp said. “The glowing lights you see are clan tattoos drawn with bioluminescent fungus.” I figured that informational moment was for my benefit.

  “Recognize the clan symbol?” Howlaa asked. I couldn’t read the tone of her voice. Worry? Annoyance? Pride? The things drew closer, and now there was a murmuring from the tunnels, a sort of chittering gnashing bunch of grunts and moans.

  “Yes,” Wisp said, and sighed. “I’ve seen the intelligence reports. They’re clan Kil’howlaa. A vengeance clan formed by the few Underdwellers who survived your last visit here.”

  “It’s nice to be remembered,” Howlaa said, and transformed.

  Chapter 5

  Howlaa’s new form was kind of like the armored Humvee version of a Komodo dragon, big and covered in spiky plates, with a long flat snout full of fangs. It reared up on two legs and showed off four arms, like a freaky Hindu god, each one tipped with claws like hunting knives that dripped some clear fluid – acid, venom, who knows.

  “The Rendigo,” Wisp said. “Her most fearsome battle form.”

  The Rendigo rushed for the most crowded tunnel, screaming with a noise like a boiling teakettle being murdered. “Normally I would urge you to find a place of safety,” Wisp said, “But if the full strength of clan Kil’howlaa is here, we’ll need your help.” Wisp went zipping toward one of the tunnels faster than I’d ever seen him move before, and one of the crouching shapes began to move clumsily and turn around and, from the sound of it, start to attack its fellow Underdwellers.

  Well, crap. Time to earn my passage, I guess. I wasn’t much of a fighter, not since some hair-pulling in fifth grade when I caught Sandy Tyler going through my bookbag when I came back from the bathroom, but I had the jump-engine all over my fists, and maybe they’d work their magic – excuse me, science magic – again.

  One of the Underdwellers came out of an unattended tunnel and ran straight for me, low and loping. I reared back my arm to throw a hopefully-teleporting punch, but then I saw its face – her face. This wasn’t some monster. The Underdweller was just a girl, blonde and snub-nosed and about my age, and apart from the spiraling glowing tattoo design on her face and the raggy clothes, she could’ve been a girl in my class.

  While I was being confronted with the essen
tial humanity of my enemy and all that, she punched me in the face.

  I’d never been punched before. Slapped, once, right after Dad died, when Mom was pretty much having a breakdown and I said something that set her off, but never punched. I saw black stars bloom in the blackness of the cavern, and my cheekbone felt like it nearly cracked, and my nose went off like a busted fire hydrant, blood going everywhere. I stumbled and half-lifted my arms to defend myself, but then Wisp came streaming in, up little miss Underdweller’s nose and into her gaping mouth, and she just stood there like a switched-off robot.

  Howlaa came trotting up, human again and covered in specks of I-didn’t-want-to-think-about-what, the whole rest of the fight apparently finished in the time it took me to get a nosebleed. “Here.” Howlaa handed me a piece of torn cloth that looked relatively clean, and I pressed it to my nose, happy for the excuse to tilt my head back and look at the ceiling and not say much.

  “Their numbers were greatly diminished,” Wisp said, his male voice coming out of the Underdweller’s open mouth, which was beyond weird. “Unless there are reserves hidden deeper. I wish I could read minds as well as hijack bodies.”

  “I do too,” Howlaa said, “because I went far enough up that tunnel to see that it’s changed. They’ve done some earthworks down here since we departed, and I don’t know the way out anymore.” Howlaa tugged on her shirt and a piece of shadowcloth came away, without so much as a ripping sound. A little more tugging and she held a length of thin black rope. She bound up the Underdweller’s unresisting hands behind her back.

  “Well, then.” Wisp spiraled out of the girl’s nose, and she shook her head, blinking blankly around, then snarling. She spat out a stream of words in –

  “Is that German? Cal’s taking a German class, it sounds kinda like that.”

  “It is,” Wisp said. “I’ll translate.” A single glowing mote detached from Wisp’s main swarm and floated to my ear, where it quietly spoke: “Dirty ugly bastards I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you all, when I get free –”

  “I get the gist,” I said.

  Wisp laughed. “I’ll only translate... pertinent information in the future.” Wisp spoke to the Underdweller, English in my ear along with the German that came out directly. “Show us the way to the surface, and we will spare your life.”

  “Too generous,” Howlaa growled. “Should have offered a quick death. Oh well.”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” I said. “Didn’t you say the Underdwellers are against the Regent too? Shouldn’t you be helping her instead of killing all her friends?”

  “They wanted to kill us, Randy. I saved your life.”

  “But why do they want to kill you? Because you killed a bunch of their other friends back when you were working for the Regent, right?”

  Howlaa looked at Wisp for some kind of back-up, but Wisp was deep in a German argument with the Underdweller, no longer bothering to translate for me, probably because I was about to dig in deep for an argument of my own with Howlaa.

  Howlaa spat, and her spit sizzled on the rock – some leftover side-effect from being the Rendigo, I figured. “Yes. Fine. True.”

  “You’re plotting a revolution, so shouldn’t they be part of it? The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that?”

  “Maybe if they didn’t have a vendetta against me,” Howlaa said. “Besides, it’s not really a revolution. It’s a mini-revolution. Wisp and I only want to break into the palace and wreck the snatch-engines and get rid of the royal orphans so that once we escape the Nex, the Regent can’t bring us back. What happens to his government after that...” Howlaa shrugged. “Not our problem.”

  I stared at her. I thought I’d fallen in with freedom fighters, trying to change the world, but they just wanted to save their own butts. I couldn’t see a reason not to say that: “You just want to save yourselves? I mean, if you wreck the engines, kill the royal orphans, and leave this place behind... won’t everyone who’s left behind starve? You said there are no natural resources here, not even real weather, so when the supplies run out, what happens to the people you liberated?”

  The Underdweller tried to run – Howlaa hadn’t tied her legs – and Howlaa had to tackle her. She whispered in the Underdweller’s ear, and the girl stiffened, then nodded and struggled to her feet. She plodded slowly toward one of the body-choked tunnels.

  “What did you say to her?” I asked.

  “Something motivating, in the language of the Underdwellers, and less diplomatic than Wisp’s words.” Howlaa went after the girl. I hung back a bit, knowing I should follow, but wanting space between me and the skinshifter.

  Wisp floated up to me. “Come, Miranda. We never claimed to be perfect. We only want our freedom. But... you have a point. There are other innocents here, who do not deserve to be abandoned. Once the snatch-engines are disabled, we can use the power of the jump-engine to send everyone back to their homes.”

  I thought about that. There were probably families who’d been on Nexington-on-Axis for generations, whose grandparents or great-grandparents had been snatched originally – this place was their home. Where were they supposed to go? To planets they’d never seen before, to live with people who looked like them but had totally different cultures? “Even the Underdwellers? You’d help them?”

  “The Underdwellers... are not good choices for allies. They might not accept our help. But if they alone were left behind on the Nex, the food stores would last them for decades. As it is, they eat each other here in the dark – they have become monstrous in their rebellion “

  “Please, like you’re squeamish about people who eat people. Or people who are monstrous.” It was hard to sound snotty with a handkerchief shoved against my nostrils, but I did my best. I went into the tunnel after Howlaa, trying not to look at the bodies I stepped around. Most of them weren’t human, at least – maybe it’s speciesist of me, but it was way harder for me to see a dead human than a dead something else, even knowing the other creatures are people too. “If I hadn’t accidentally turned on the jump-engine, you two would have just taken the necklace and left me in the woods.”

  “Yes. I suppose you’re right. And I’m sorry. But Miranda... our lives have not allowed us much in the way of conscience. Howlaa is actually quite well-adjusted for a creature evolved over countless generations to become an infiltrating treacherous killer. She... drinks, you know. One reason she wanted a human form originally is because alcohol is plentiful here, at least in the city proper, and she prefers drunken oblivion to the sober contemplation of her lot in life. This is the longest I’ve seen her sober in a long time. Sober, and focused, and trying. Please don’t judge us too harshly. We’re doing our best.”

  You’ll have to do better than that if you want my help, I thought, but didn’t say it. Not yet.

  We followed the Underdweller for a while. “How do we know she’s not leading us to a room full of her pals? Or a lava pit?”

  “We don’t,” Howlaa said. “But where’s your love and trust and fellow-feeling now?”

  I bit back a nasty answer – “Something about being with you has made me a lot less trusting” – then looked at the cloth Howlaa had given me. I hoped there wasn’t anything down here that could smell blood. I pressed it back against my nostrils. At least the bleed was slowing down.

  The tunnel was close and narrow and weirdly twisty, and it was kind of like being inside an ant farm – this didn’t feel like the inside of a mine or something people had made, but it wasn’t like natural caves, either, because the walls and ceiling were all smooth and rounded. Gradually the tunnel got brighter, light coming from smears of luminous fungus dotting the walls at irregular intervals. The passage opened up and out from narrow hallway to four-lane freeway width, and we passed crumbling statues of the weirdest things – a pickup truck, a park bench, a refrigerator, an old-fashioned jukebox. Those were just the sculptures of things I recognized. There were lots of others that didn’t look like anything I knew at all, big jumbles of tub
es and valves, weird things with spikes and loops and holes, all made out of this brownish crumbly-looking rock. The sculpture garden stretched as far into the gloom in all directions as I could see, some of the statues painted here and there with glowing fungus in weird patterns.

  I touched one of the statues – it looked like a sci-fi movie robot crossed with a knight’s suit of armor – and the arm fell off with a thump. The Underdweller girl whipped around and snarled at me, then launched herself. Howlaa swatted her down, but she bounced back up again and came for me. My nose started hurting preemptively. Howlaa grabbed her, shook her, and put her back on the path, and she kept on leading us, but not without a lot of sullen pissy looks over her shoulder at me.

  “What’d I do? Did she carve that one or something?” My voice was all nasally from the crusted-up blood in my nostrils.

  “The coproliths are sacred to the Underdwellers,” Wisp said. “The touch of someone from above is considered profane.”

  Oh, crap. A taboo, like I’d read about on our trip to Hawaii, which hadn’t stopped Cal from bringing a few chunks of sacred lava rock home in his suitcase. “Can you tell her I’m sorry? That I didn’t mean to?”

  “I can, but it wouldn’t help,” Wisp said.

  Something sparked in my head, some vocabulary word I’d seen when studying for the PSAT. “Wait, did you say copro-something? Like, dinosaur crap?”

  “I call them coproliths, which just means fossilized dung, but in this case, in your language, it’s also a pun on ‘monolith,’ rather a clever one I think –”

  “Wisp thinks he’s so clever,” Howlaa said. “I’m sure there’s a word in your language for people like him, too.”

  It seemed to me they were skipping over the important point. “So you’re saying those sculptures are made of poo?”

  Howlaa cackled. “Better wash your hands before you eat your next apple, Randy.”