by Andrew Post
Höwerglaz, Dreck, and the pirates reeled—terror in every pair of eyes. Many ran.
His, now, were hands Gorett had never known. Not hands at all. No, not hands. Claws, bleeding liquid shadow.
Oh, look how beautiful we are, Pitka.
CHAPTER 26
Hero Maker’s Folly
Nevele had hated FTL travel even as a child when going from planet to planet with her parents. The nausea was tolerable now, but anxiety had a stronger hold. Snapping the magazine free of her machine gun, she frowned at the six remaining bullets inside, hoping but knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
The control panel beeped. Nigel pressed a button. A new holopanel manifested, shoving in among the others. In it was a vid feed of another starship cockpit. A face came into frame, and Nevele’s blood immediately boiled.
Höwerglaz. Rosy-cheeked, young, but the deep exhaustion of a grizzled veteran clouded him. “Clyde? Is that y’all comin’ this way?”
“What the plummets do you want?” Flam grunted.
Clyde leaned to be in clearer view of the vidscreen.
His aversion was undisguised. “I think Flam here said it best, Ernest.”
The ID for the starship Höwerglaz was piloting popped up in the corner of the holo. The Magic Carpet? Dragging a tattooed hand down his face, he glanced away from the camera to check his ship’s controls—or perhaps not. Maybe he couldn’t bear to look them in the eyes right now, even over ship-to-ship vid comm. “Well, even though I said all that about takin’ action, I might recommend you bench yerself for a while. It’s not lookin’ too good for the Odium. Might consider lettin’ the problem take care of itself. Ask me, looks like it’s well on its way.”
“What did you do now? And why did you betray us?” Clyde snapped. “Why should we ever trust a word you say?”
Höwerglaz sighed, his blip on their radar now falling out of range and, with it, the connection between them growing fuzzy and pixilated, skipping frames. “It’s like I said, son, I’m not on any one side.”
“Yes, you claim you’re firmly neutral. But neutrality, as I understand it, doesn’t mean changing sides as you please; it means not taking one at all.”
Beside Clyde, Flam nodded.
On the radar, a ship streaked past in the opposite direction. South by southwest. It’s destination Nevele couldn’t guess, but with so little left on the continent now except small crossroads in the desert, it stood to reason he’d seek refuge in the nation of Embaclawe. If so, the prospect terrified her. If Höwerglaz was afraid of something, anything . . . What had he done?
“Listen, we’re about to lose the connection. I did what I did only because I know you can be great. I—”
“Stop,” Clyde said. “Do you have any idea how many people died because you were trying to make things more interesting? Geyser fell, and we still have no idea how many people managed to get away with their lives beforehand.”
“They would’ve sacked Geyser whether they had me or not.”
Clyde sat back, mulling that.
“Mark me as one of the baddies if you need to. That’s fine. But me doin’ this will align things. Trust me. Already is. This was for the best—truly—but this fight, the one yer headin’ to now, isn’t yers. Not yet. We let her have Dreck, and then we take her on—just, later. I am in control. I know what I’m doing.” He paused, eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare. “I knew Gorett had a worm. I just didn’t think it’d end up making him into—” Frame freezing, his image became jerky.
“Wait, who are you talking about? Her who? And Gorett would become what?” Clyde leaned in. “Become what, Ernest?” Clyde’s imagination was more than happy to provide possibilities.
Connection lost. The words replaced Höwerglaz’s image on the vidscreen.
“Maybe he was actually being honest,” Nevele said. “Should we just let whatever he made take care of the Odium for us? Perhaps he really does have a plan.”
“If Höwerglaz was trying to make Gleese a more interesting place,” Clyde said, an unsettling smirk forming, “why disappoint him?”
“Pasty. Weren’t you listening?” Flam said. “Father Time is scared.”
Nigel kept them moving north, but he eased back on the thrusters. “Ye say it, son, and I won’t think ye’re yellow bellied. Any fighter worth his salt knows ye need to pick yer battles.”
“No. We go,” Clyde said. “Trying to find a way around problems only led to Geyser being destroyed.” He turned to look at Aksel under the sheet in the back. “We go.”
“Aye-aye,” Nigel said solemnly and triggered the FTL.
As soon as they dropped out of FTL travel, ice and snow pattered against the hull. The windows frosted over, and soon the chill bled inside the ship as well.
Nigel brought the ship about, lowering it incrementally. Trying to find a flat place to land was hard enough, but he was also fighting wind that seemed determined to fling them against sharp glacier walls.
Coming down through the blizzard, passing underneath the millennia-old storm where it was slightly less turbulent, they spotted a fissure in the ice. It was almost easy to miss with this place so uniformly white-blue. The coordinates were for the gap: inside it, apparently. Nigel pushed them on through the screaming blue mouth in the ground. The wind’s howling silenced as soon as they were through, belowground.
An enormous cavern spread out beneath them, as if the glacier were an egg with a thin shell. It now made sense why no one could find this place. The Odium had discovered quite the secure hiding spot.
No gunfire drifted in. No alarms, no sounds at all. Everything was still: every piece of mining equipment, every docked starship. No one hid among the expansive field of stolen goods organized into heaped rows.
“Did they go somewhere else?” Flam suggested. “A second, double-secret base?”
Clyde went to the window. A few smaller buildings were arrayed around a larger, central one, connected by a network of glass tunnels that bounced the sunlight into incomplete dotted-line rainbows. The buildings’ architecture fit this place, asymmetrical and frosty white. It was hard to tell where the man-made structures ended and the glacier began.
“Mr. Clyde, look at that,” Rohm said, pointing out something portside.
Towering and watching over all was a giant metal sculpture: a woman, arms outstretched, glowing electric eyes making the flakes spiraling about her flare.
Flakes of not just snow but ash as well. The main building hemorrhaged fire from a long rip in the wall.
Nigel set the ship down at the edge of the loot field. The environment welcomed the starship with its frigid squeeze. As soon as Nigel shut off the main power, the entire ship creaked.
As Flam was about to open the rear hatch, Clyde stopped him, pointing out the control panel’s reading of the exterior temperature. Sixty degrees below zero with a wind shear of negative one hundred two. “We can’t go out there dressed as we are,” Clyde said. He wore ripped trousers and a bloodstained jacket and poncho. Flam was in only his guardsman surcoat and trousers and no footwear. Nevele had her thin jacket, holey dungarees, and boiled-leather boots. Not a pair of gloves between them. “We’ll freeze in a second.”
“Nippy,” Flam said humorlessly.
“At least you have fur,” Nevele pointed out.
Flam moved to a window that was already nearly opaque with frost. “I wonder how long my daft old uncle managed to hold on . . .”
When Clyde sighed, his breath was a pocket-sized ghost. “We’ll find him.”
In what condition was left to be determined.
The six Lulomba seemed unnerved. Their Blatta had made constant noise the entire flight. Now they were chittering and buzzing, keeping clear of the windows, congregating into a small phalanx, carapaces always touching their neighbors. Was it the cold they didn’t like, so unlike the balmy climes of Geyser? Or were the insects and their keepers picking up on something the others weren’t? Clyde certainly could feel the gloom of this place. Not entirel
y because of the cold. The tomblike silence didn’t help. He stared out at the Odium base, so still, unable to imagine anything other than waiting traps within.
“I’ll take ’er back up,” Nigel said. “Maintain a bird’s-eye view of things. Keep your radio on,” he instructed Flam.
Clyde snapped to and reached for the starship’s hatch handle. The moment it opened even an inch, Clyde’s eyes felt frozen solid in their sockets. He winced, but there was nowhere to get away. The cold’s invisible wrath gushed into the starship, lapping against them with a sharp-toothed ardor.
Together they dropped out of the ship and ran for the base’s door. Clyde’s lungs burned, bones ached, teeth felt as if they’d shatter if he spoke.
Nevele marched through the knee-deep snow, lugging her machine gun.
Flam, the least hindered by the snow, strode with his rifle.
Nigel took off a moment later, starship engines struggling. He passed overhead and sank out of sight around the bend of the building.
Clyde had read that Gleese’s ice cap was under an endless blizzard. It was rumored to have begun with the planet’s formation. He’d never expected it to be like this—so sadistic. It was as if the place itself took joy in finding people who dared to set foot there, wanted nothing but to transform the interlopers into blue-skinned statues, permanent additions.
And not even three days ago, he’d been in the desert, cursing the heat . . .
The door opened like a ship or a bank vault, with a big round wheel that had to be turned. The seal snapped, and the door came free, swept open by the wind. They rushed inside the base, and Flam pulled it closed behind them. Pirates potentially waiting for them be damned for a moment. They all fought to catch their breath and rub frozen knees and hands, summoning blood that’d retreated from fingers and ears.
Not that it was much warmer in here, but being out of the wind certainly helped.
They were alone in this small anteroom. Moving on into the first hall, Flam took the lead. They treaded softly, cautiously. A majority of the lights were out, their path lit by the white rays that managed to sneak through frosted skylights and the occasional glass tunnel. The wind continued to tear about outside as if wanting to follow them in, ice smacking and crashing as it raged. Still, it was the only sound.
“I thought the Odium was like a thousand strong,” Nevele whispered. “We put a good number of them down during the attack, but it couldn’t have been that many.”
Clyde couldn’t say for sure, but he knew he was thinking on Höwerglaz’s warning again: the word monster, specifically. He was beginning to think maybe Flam’s earlier suggestion might’ve been right. Maybe the Odium had abandoned this base in favor of a second, even more secret, aerie. That is, until he saw a figure at the far end of the hall turn the corner.
The person, barely discernible from the shadows surrounding, moved as if full of broken bones, movements twitchy and uncoordinated. But he didn’t moan or shout in pain. Merely lumbered about, aimless, silent. Apparently the figure, a pirate, spotted them too—and at once approached in an unbalanced lope. When he passed a row of windows, a blue glare shot in on the side of his face. The man’s eyes were vacant, rolled so far back they only showed whites. His mouth was slack, something black dribbling down his chin and onto his chest, leaving a splattered trail.
“What’s wrong with him?” Flam said, voice hitching.
Trying to draw Commencement, Clyde found the sword was frozen into its sheath. He yanked on the handle. The blade wouldn’t come free.
Nearer now, the man drew a ragged breath and exhaled a peal of anguish or anger.
Nevele opened fire, the machine gun’s pops deafening in this tight hall.
All three shots struck into the pirate’s chest but only made him temporarily lose his balance. He advanced, gray hands reaching—screaming, nearly as loud as the gunfire, like a wailing alarm.
Bringing his rifle overhead, Flam rushed forward and crashed the stock across the man’s face. He spun, trembling palms slapping to the filthy floor, cries cutting off abruptly. He paused, then sat on his haunches, looking dazed. With the aid of the wall, fingertips blackened with frostbite, he pushed up to his feet as if drunk. Just as crookedly, he turned, blank eyes scanning, somehow perceived where his attackers were again—and reached out, screaming anew.
“Let’s try that again,” the Mouflon said and rewarded the man’s dogged, dead-eyed efforts with a second smack. Like a fist colliding with an overripe melon, the blow sank in half of his head. He lay on the floor, feet still shuffling and fingers squirming, but then he curled into a tight ball, clutching his stomach, coughing and gagging.
As he retched violently—sending Clyde, Flam, and Nevele leaping back—a brown-black typhoon was freed from the man, settling in a broad, steaming puddle. A puddle that . . . squirmed. The man went still, but within the muck, a handful of snake-sized worms, wriggling atop each other in a loose mound, sprang awake. They raced free of the puddle in all directions.
Flam shrieked, danced his hooves back.
Nevele was about as pale as Clyde.
Rohm shivered in Clyde’s protective pocket.
Clyde . . . didn’t know what to think.
The worms crawled off, up and down the hall, sticking to the edges, as rats trying to remain stealthy would travel.
“What in the plummets was that?” Flam kept his distance from the dead man. “You don’t suppose that’s what Höwerglaz was talking about?”
“Those looked like bone worms, but I’ve never heard of them getting so big,” Nevele said, glancing around as if sure one of the gray worms was crawling its ribbed, slimy, three-foot body up her pant leg. Her whole body shivered. With tremulous hands—either from cold or fear, Clyde couldn’t tell—she checked her machine gun’s magazine, frowned. “Three rounds left.” She turned to Flam. “You?”
“Two.”
“Fantastic,” Nevele said and sighed, a white plume exiting her lips.
“So this is what happens when someone tries to make a weaver, then?” Clyde asked no one in particular, stepping closer to the worm-vacated heap on the floor with the mushed-in noggin. His eyes—Clyde only glimpsed them a second before averting his gaze—remained inflexibly wide, as if even in death he was surprised at the twisted thing he’d become.
When Flam spoke, Clyde flinched. “Let’s find Dreck and Gorett and get the plummets out of here.” Flam paused to work the rifle bolt. “I don’t think we should spend any more time than absolutely necessary in this place.”
“No argument here,” Nevele said.
The ice cementing sheath and hilt together finally gave, and Commencement sang free, grating with a long shhhing as it tasted the stale air. Clyde held the blade in two hands, and as much as his chilled-numb legs were telling him to run the other way, he stepped on, around the dead pirate, following the worms’ oily trails.
CHAPTER 27
Cannot Be Unmade
The base was enormous, and they covered the first and second story, following the worms’ trail. As it lost more of its syrupy blackness, the trail began to fade. But soon auditory cues told them which way to go. A rolling murmur, like a group of people speaking under their breath, intercut with the occasional blast of a gun.
“I swear,” Flam said, watching the others’ backs, “if we ever see Höwerglaz again, I don’t care if he’s in the middle of a sit on the porcelain throne, I’ll . . . I’ll do something that defies words. Something so bad you two will probably never be able to look me in the eyes again without cringing. Something so bad that the primordial crone that shited him into this world won’t even recognize his ugly—”
Turning the next corner, Flam fell silent.
The group stopped short.
No fewer than twenty of the plagued pirates were piled against a door. As one, they beat upon it, gathered up into a tight group, working together to try and shove themselves through the door’s steel, like a living battering ram. It was metal, but they had mad
e one dent, a triangle of open space. From within, someone was shouting.
In the gap the muzzle of a scattergun appeared, angling about blindly. The gun cracked, and one of the pirates fell away. When his back met the floor, he fell into spasms that increased in severity until, at its climax, a brown-black volcano erupted free, sending more worms raining about. The corpse deflated as it noisily emptied. The worms then gathered around the remaining diseased mob, contributing another inch to the ankle-deep mass that also aided in pushing against the door, like an ocean’s waves eroding a coastline.
“And here I brought each and every one of you aboard,” someone beyond the beleaguered door shouted, “giving you a home, a job—and this is what you do?” The scattergun fired again, dropping another pirate to flail and unload his inhabitants like the one before.
The group remained at the corner, peeking around.
“That sounds like Dreck,” Nevele said, hushed.
Flam grunted. “And who says the universe is unjust?”
They remained for a while, watching the diseased men crowd against their captain’s chambers one slam after another. Every once in a while another one would join, coming from farther up the hall, drawn to this place by the noise. Clyde listened in between Dreck’s shots, hearing footsteps above them. They were all over the place but were slowly being drawn here. If any of the plagued pirates noticed Clyde and the others, they gave no sign. They were being willed on, congregating for a purpose, for a single objective: Dreck. Clyde considered how Rohm, when he was whole and one frisk mouse was separate from the others, could still see what all the members were seeing even while separated by miles. Could these parasitic worms work the same way? They certainly didn’t seem to be communicating by any other discernible, outward means.
“Where do you suppose Gorett’s run off to?” Flam said. “In there with Dreck or somewhere else? Because if we want them alive, we might need to intervene after all . . . as much fun as it might be to let them get what’s coming to them.”
