Analog SFF, May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He climbed upwards with the speed of terror, hoping the heavy thing wouldn't dare get too high. He risked a glance. His pursuer had slowed but not stopped. And his prospect of out-climbing it shrank: its body had thinned and stretched, distributing its weight. What now? Should he keep going up, sneak around the trunk and try to descend quickly enough to get away, or work his way outwards along some branch and take his chances from there?

  That last alternative gave him an idea. He climbed to the nearest dead branch and managed to snap it off without quite falling in the process. Suspended from a healthy branch by one arm while bracing his feet against a protruding knothole, he menaced his attacker's eyes with his new best friend.

  The beast snapped at the friend, catching it in its mouth and tugging just enough to break Erik's hold on the tree. For an instant, the jaws held the branch, with Erik at the end, dead perpendicular.

  On the bright side, this kept him from falling into those appalling teeth. On the obverse, the ground waited some thirty meters below. He looked for a new branch to grab, but couldn't spot one within grabbing distance all the way down. So he kept a tight grip on the sad excuse for a spear but shifted his weight, trying to pole-vault to a better location and praying the beast wouldn't stop supporting his improvised pole.

  Possibly he'd underestimated the combination of his mass, leverage, and momentum. Involuntarily, he swung down and around. Then he was both falling and about to crash into the tree trunk. He used his legs to rebound from the corrugated bark, trying to push upwards to slow his fall, and succeeded just enough for two surprisingly heavy teeth, no doubt extracted by his own sudden weight, to rap his head on their way down. A masterpiece of bad timing, but the least of his problems. He still held the pole, which had failed him on all counts, and failed again when he found he could use it to reach various branches, but do no more than tap them in passing.

  When he jerked to a stop, he feared that the beast had jumped down and grabbed his tail—he'd felt a tremendous tug on it.

  He turned and stared at what that tail had become: six ropes ending in hooks. The hooks had dug long furrows into the wood before they'd caught enough to stop him.

  Above him, the monster howled, a windy roar with operatic vibrato, a sound repeated from two other locations: one to his right and close, then another distant and from somewhere behind him. Not echoes. The beast spun around and began climbing downwards headfirst, slamming its claws into the truck to retain purchase.

  Acting autonomously, every tail-hook save one pulled itself from the trunk and Erik slid downwards, accompanied by the hiss of tearing bark. He was grateful for the rescue and delighted to be moving in the right direction, but wished he was sliding faster. Three meters from the ground, an encounter with a hard knot knocked the last hook free. Erik fell, his landing gentled by tail sections that reached below him and eased him to the ground.

  A useful appendage for sure, he thought while checking for the best escape route; but if we live much longer, the tail and I better have a talk about who's in charge.

  A second monster, larger than the first but built along similar lines, leaped over a cluster of saplings and landed so close to Erik that a ribbon of its hot drool splashed over his bare feet. Its jaws were set sideways, which made it easy for the animal to see past its mouth as those fanged pinchers gaped wide. Then it sprang.

  Two of Erik's tail sections flailed out, churning twin bullwhip-snaps from the air. The beast screamed and curled up mid-flight. An outer side of its jaw bashed Erik's forehead, while a scaled shoulder knocked him sideways. The two blows were far from caresses, but they pushed him aside and the beast didn't fall on him. Dazed by the head-blow, he stumbled halfway across the small clearing before he could turn to assess the situation. Monster one stood above its crony, shaking its head in a bizarre parody of human disbelief. Number two lay moaning, its eye-sockets empty pools of blood.

  A rustling from behind alerted Erik to a third monster entering the scene.

  "Okay, tail,” he muttered, “get us out of this.” After a moment he added, “Don't just hang there. Do something! Look, you can be in charge."

  The tail just twitched. Erik guessed his new flesh was willing, but like any muscle, it could only do so much before it had to rest. Trying to keep watch on both functional monsters—no easy task since they flanked him—he glanced around for any kind of club.

  He noticed a fallen branch with potential and took his eyes off the beasts for an instant. They sprang towards him with a stereo twang and all he could do was dive forward and hope. He was almost fast enough. The original monster missed him, but the other managed to shove enough fangs into his left arm to get a solid grip. As the beast landed, it used that purchase to flip its victim entirely over its body. Erik smashed to the ground, back first. For a terrible instant, he couldn't move or protect himself when the beast released his arm and went for his throat.

  Those long jaws didn't need to open especially wide to enclose Erik's neck. They closed with appalling force, crushing his larynx and riddling his neck with fangs.

  A normal human would've died instantly. But the bones and tissues of Erik's neck softened as the jaws closed, and the scales began pumping air into his arteries, proving they were more than mere gills.

  Then a wall of pain fell on him, and he passed out.

  * * * *

  It seemed only seconds had elapsed, but when he opened his eyes, five monster corpses littered the clearing. The two he hadn't seen before had shorter legs than the others, three-part jaws, and sideways-curving teeth. He presumed the eyeless one had died of its wounds, but the other four appeared intact except for viscous brown fluids seeping from their mouths, nostrils, ears, and anuses. Even upwind, they stank.

  He sat propped up, his back against something soft and warm. His dried clothes lay draped over his legs. He turned and found Liana's face very close.

  She smiled. “Disy figured that if I held you upright and pressed my hands against your wounds, you'd be fine.” She showed him her blood-covered palms. “Paat must've told him about—"

  "Disy? Paat?” Erik explored his neck with his fingertips. He felt wetness, but no holes.

  "You'll see. Disy's short for S'rdis S'git S'tang. He went to fetch the others."

  It dawned on Erik that he liked the sound of her voice. He wriggled into his pants without getting up, but his journey through the pipe had weakened the material and it ripped in the back. Not ideal for modesty, but at least his tails could get out and play. “Those are strange names.” He examined his tunic and wrote it off.

  "On this level, yeah. Brace yourself. First time I saw Disy, I screamed. He's a Theill, and they're not a pretty species."

  "Is he the one who,” Erik waved his hand at the bodies, “killed these?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "How?"

  She shrugged. “Sonic weapon. He said it burst their guts."

  "Shiva! Remind me not to annoy him. Did he do anything to heal my neck aside from using your hands as a tourniquet?"

  "You fixed yourself. The arm, too. One second you were bleeding rivers, then your skin went mushy. When it firmed up, all good. Guess I'm not the only one with clever dermis. Oh, there he is. And behind him, the rest of our crew."

  Despite Liana's warning, Erik barely choked back a yell. His restraint depended less on politeness than with hoping to avoid the Theill's notice. Disy made his associates seem ordinary and harmless by comparison. One was Liana's huge cousin, Gregor, mounted on a bizarre animal; but Erik was more surprised by who shared the steed, riding sidesaddle behind Gregor: the Gelpie who'd appeared in Hooke Park, or a clone. The three newcomers held a private conversation in a language seemingly assembled from rude noises.

  "What are they riding?” Erik whispered.

  "Paat calls it an urz," she replied just as quietly. “Paat's the Gelpie, of course. She brought Disy along for muscle. Some crew, huh?"

  He lowered his voice even more. “Terrific. I'd bet we'd win grand prize
in some all-Tower weirdness competition."

  Her laugh cheered him. Still, her team made him nervous: a giant human, a female faux panda, and a . . . something roughly cow-sized excluding its eight limbs. In Erik's view, Disy suggested a mélange of vampire bat and spider. He had a pushed-in nose, needle fangs, and upright ears scaled for a colossus. His bulbous abdomen, hanging between and below six hairy knees, sported vivid black and red stripes. The middle knee rose higher than the rest. Completing the limb roster were mantis-like arms, small artifacts dangling from their apparently sticky sides. The arms terminated in many small tentacles, hardly Disy's sole departure from Chiroptera or Araneae stock equipment. Two leathery sacs descended from each side of his barrel-shaped thorax, inflating and deflating in sequence. A larger but translucent sac, hanging in front of and below Disy's head, remained inert.

  The six beady green eyes, arranged in an arc on the Theill's forehead, proved dichroic. They flashed orange as Disy turned slightly and spoke while the formerly slack sac twisted and vibrated. His lugubrious tone reminded Erik of the donkey Eeyore from antique Winnie The Pooh animations he'd watched as a kid in the Library Archives.

  "A gathering of the doomed heroic us are, five among nearly that many powers of eight living in thrall to well-netted authority.” Despite the pronoun misstep and an unusual accent—pronouncing “er” as “or"—Erik had understood every word. But the sentence baffled him.

  "What,” Erik asked respectfully, “do you mean?"

  "Us regret any un-clarity,” the spidery creature lamented. “S'Theill lack the gab gifts of ours nobler associates, S'Gelpies. Thus them are Captains’ upper limbs and us are deservedly relegated to distals.” He pointed a front limb at the Gelpie. “Perhaps, Paat, yous care to explain?” Erik's head filled with so many questions, they formed a logjam at his throat.

  "Not here,” the Gelpie cautioned in a flute-like but somewhat muffled voice. “Local authorities are focusing their search elsewhere, but someone thought to release hunters in this forest. Since the hunters will not be returning, our continued privacy is unlikely."

  Gregor vaulted off his steed. “Actually, explaining should be my job since this is my level. We'll get to it soon enough. First, you two all right?” he asked Liana and Erik.

  Liana nodded.

  "Good. So that blood you're wearing isn't yours?"

  She tilted her head toward Erik. “His. But he's fine now."

  The big man observed Erik for a moment, frowning a bit. “I'm Gregor. Feel well enough to get moving, son?"

  "I think so. Moving to where?"

  Paat spoke up. “Safety. These hunters located you so swiftly that I suspect some flavor bacteria from your escape clings to you, sending a subtle, fruity message on the wind. You must depart this leveluntil the search for you eases. A few more of your hours should suffice."

  Erik's jaw dropped for an instant. “We're going to another level?"

  "Not quite,” Paat said.

  Without asking permission, Gregor hoisted Erik off the ground and onto the urz. Meanwhile, Liana climbed one of Disy's legs to reach a perch on the hairy back. She made it look easy. From his new position in front of Paat, Erik could see that the steed was even stranger than he'd thought. It resembled a hairless horse with a giraffe's neck, but its hooves seemed to have multiple small legs of their own so that the beast appeared to stand on the backs of enormous tarantulas. Also, the heavy, wrinkled hide confused the eye with its blue, teal, and olive streaks—camouflage for some alien forest. But an illuminated instrument panel inlaid into the long neck capped the oddity.

  "This thing I'm sitting on. Is it alive?"

  Gregor looked harassed. “No. Grab the mane and grip with your legs. Paat will handle the driving."

  The Gelpie, as far as Erik could tell, didn't so much as twitch, but the machine began trotting—soundlessly. Erik risked leaning over and saw a front hoof with its platoon of mini-legs pass over a soft patch of bare soil. The hoof assembly left no print. So it seemed the thing flew, its leg motion strictly for show. But who, he wondered, was the show for?

  They were within a kilometer from the nearest section of wall, but by the time they reached it, Gregor was panting like a dog in a sauna. Despite carrying Liana, Disy's breathing sacs worked no harder than when he'd started.

  As always, the wall displayed realistic vistas, constantly altering shadows and lighting to match the hour. This section presented a distant, snow-capped mountain, also part of a valley and glints from a central, immense lake. Close-up, the illusion failed as the human eye focused for apparent distance rather than actual distance. There, the scene disintegrated into abstract blotches, and tiny hexagonal knobs texturing the surface became noticeable.

  Natives were too accustomed to this level-girdling animation to consider it impressive or even interesting. But when Paat slid to the ground, walked to the wall, touched it casually, and a large doorway irised open, Disy had to reach out a steadying leg to keep Erik from falling. In the young man's spinning mind, the gap violated fundamental laws of reality.

  Liana nodded. “Got to me, too, first time."

  Paat remounted and steered the four-legged machine through the opening and into a shadowy space beyond. The others followed. When everyone had passed the wall, the gap closed and a domed ceiling high above brightened into a silver-blue glow. Paat dismounted and stretched herself like a cat.

  * * * *

  Erik glanced around, amazed at the room's spaciousness. The air smelled exceedingly fresh. A Bateson Kin banquet could've been held here if some bulky tanks, a few exotic machines, and six metal canisters were cleared away. Every artifact appeared pristine except for the pitted and rusty canisters.

  Erik thought the ceiling was rising until he realized that the urz's legs were shrinking. “What is—” he hesitated, startled by the tinniness of his voice, “—this place?” Swinging a leg over the urz's back, he made the short hop to the floor.

  "We are within a vehicle,” Paat offered. “It responds to mental commands from agents such as myself, and I called it to meet us here. Please forgive my impoliteness, but I will now make myself more comfortable."

  The tube-like structure of her mouth expanded, and she spat out a circular, ornately pierced disk and placed it in her version of a kangaroo-style pouch. “That feels so much better.” Her voice sounded clearer, but higher in pitch. “Carbon dioxide,” she explained, “is slightly toxic for my kind, but replacing most of it with helium provides a common denominator for us all. Is everyone content with this environment?"

  Disy made a sound between a creak and a groan. “Gravity could be lighter, and we don't care for that ozone stink, but we suppose it's survivable."

  "High praise coming from you, my friend."

  "Can this, ah, vehicle travel to other levels?” Erik asked.

  "If it doesn't break down,” Disy volunteered.

  Paat ignored the remark. “That's its purpose, Erik Bateson. Before we discuss the current crisis, have you any queries of a general nature?"

  "You bet! Where are we?"

  "As I stated, in a vehicle that—"

  "I meant the whole Tower of Worlds. Are we on Earth or someplace else?"

  The Gelpie paused before responding. “I didn't invite inquiries quite that general. I'm so sorry, but the Captains forbid me from disclosing such facts."

  "Paat won't even tell me,” Gregor admitted. “And I've been working for the Captains, indirectly, for fifteen years."

  Paat reached up to caress Gregor's shoulder with a two-part hand. “You have earned this knowledge, my dear friend, but it could be dangerous in the wrong minds. Your queen isn't the only twisted intellect in the Tower."

  Paat turned back toward Erik. “I've no doubt you are trustworthy, yet humans are not proof against torture or drugs."

  "And you are?"

  "I can die at will."

  "Can you at least tell me if we're on a planet?"

  She hesitated again. “I dare offer no speci
fics. Still, would you mind abating my own curiosity despite my reticence to abate yours? Where do you suspect we are?"

  "My guess? The Tower's in deep space, on its way to some distant star system."

  Gregor whistled a low note. “You don't think small! What kind of spaceship could carry even our level?"

  Erik shrugged. “I've read that, theoretically, you could hollow out a big asteroid and fit it with rockets or something. It might start off slow, but should eventually get to wherever you aimed it. But if its passengers aren't in suspended animation, a trip across light years could use up many generations. Atmosphere and ecology would have to be self-perpetuating, of course."

  He wondered how Liana was taking this, but couldn't read her expression.

  "Ridiculous,” Gregor muttered.

  Erik felt a bit stung. “Why? Wouldn't that explain the Tower? And beings who call themselves ‘Captains’ ought to be running some kind of ship."

  Gregor snorted. “What do you say, Paat?"

  "Only this: Erik Bateson: your intuition is . . . not altogether misdirected, but you underestimate the Tower, its nature and attributes, by several orders of magnitude. It is not a structure you have a word for or are likely to imagine. Pardon me. I have spoken too freely."

  Erik stared at Paat, peripherally aware that everyone including Disy was doing likewise. The silence was nearly absolute. No birdcall, animal-rustle, or whoosh of wind penetrated the wall.

  Finally, Gregor cleared his throat. “Well. That's heavy food for thought, but let's focus on our immediate problems."

  "Most sensible,” Paat said. “You still wish to do the briefing?"

  "Yeah.” Gregor turned to face Erik. “First off, the Royal Plague is a damn hoax."

  "I know. You were there when the Rinpoche told me."

  "Couldn't hear him over the fountain. He actually admitted it?"

  "He expected my death, so when I asked about the plague—"

  "Some beings,” Disy interrupted, “cannot resist correcting others."

  Paat performed an odd, sideways bow. “I believe you slyly refer to me, S'git, but I never correct anyone. Kindly continue, Gregor."