That brought her around. "Are they firebombing?"
"Yes, and it looks like they're pulling alongside to board."
"Where are we?"
"Top deck, starboard, near the bow."
"This way ― and hurry!"
We went out on deck and made our way aft, keeping a lookout for falling fireballs. The bombardment continued, but most of the orbiting lights had fallen. It seemed like a coordinated attack, with the bombardment probably scheduled to cease just prior to the boarding attempt. I saw now that the fireballs were making circular epicycles as they orbited, and when two searchlight beams from the ship converged in the air above us and to our right, I saw what bore them. These weren't merely sailing fish, but giant airborne animals that looked like mythic sea serpents, with long tapering bodies and mighty pinions beating the night air. On their backs rode smaller animals, Arfies; from what I could make out. One Arfie in each flight crew, the bombadier, twirled a fireball around his head before letting it go. The ship's exciter batteries were taking their toll. The beast in the searchlight beams blossomed into an orange ball of fire, momentum carrying flaming remnants into a descending arc ahead. But there were too many of them, and apparently only two operating batteries.
"Look out!"
It was Roland, and I looked back. Something was swooping toward us, coming directly from behind. We all hit the deck, and I felt air swoosh over me as the animal passed. It smacked into the deck further ahead and went crashing into a canopied dining terrace, then stopped. We got up and looked, backing away prudently, but before anyone could make the intelligent decision to turn and run, big shapes flopped toward us from out of the darkness ― Arfies, four 9f them, armed with crude axes and other, stranger implements. I shot at one of them but apparently missed, or it may have been that the animal was very hard to bring down. Roland and Darla started firing. Darla's first shot seared off a forward flipper of one of them, but he kept coming too, barking insanely, picking up his dropped weapon with the other flipper and charging. Roland used half a charge to flame another of them in its tracks, then turned the beam on the one I had missed, with the same result. But the two remaining were fast ― and big. Up until then I had only seen Arfies at a distance. They were massive beasts, with blubbery rolls of fat padding their undersides and powerful muscles along the flanks to work the flippers. They looked almost nothing like seals or walruses now ― more like amphibian versions of a Brahma bull. We backed as we fired. I got off two more shots with little effect, but Darla finally got her target cut to pieces and it slumped over unmoving. Roland was digging in his pockets for another charge, and Darla was now out. I fired my last round at the remaining Arfie, then threw the gun at it. He kept coming and we all ran, scattering, but the thing chose to follow me. I was wondering what happened to the kid. He was off to my right, hitting his gun with his fist as he ran.
"Won't work!" he yelled.
I yelled for him to throw it over and he did. It was an odd make with a tricky safety catch, which I knew about from having owned one. I thumbed off the safety, turned, and emptied the powerpak in one steady beam right at the creature's head. It was dead by the time it hit me, but it hit like a runaway rig.
The next thing I knew, I was being helped to my feet. I was shaken up, but more or less in one piece.
"You almost flew off the deck," Roland told me, handing me the dream wand, which I had stuffed in my back pocket.
"Thanks." I took the wand and slipped it into a side pocket of John's backpack. I looked aft and saw that the flying sea serpent was still pinned in the wreckage of the dining terrace, its wings snarled in the canvas canopy and thrashing uselessly. "We can't go that way, unless we want to deal with that thing. Lori, can you get us belowdecks another way?"
"We'll have to go back through the ship."
We found the nearest hatch and went back in. Smoke was hanging thick in the corridors. Shouting came from all directions as passengers clogged the halls in an effort to get to the stairways. It was bedlam. Lori took my arm. We followed her back the way we had come, made a few turns, then ducked into a small room lined with cabinets that held bedding and linen. Near the back wall a ladder descended through a hatchway in the floor. I looked down. The ladder went down a long way. She told us these were quick-access shafts, and that only the crew used them. We started down. It took a good while and a few trod-upon fingers before all of us made it down to C Deck, winding up in a storage room full of crates and miscellaneous equipment.
"Where to now?" I asked Lori, taking off my shirt and handing it to her. She had doffed the sheet before taking the ladder.
"Thanks. You'll have to take the ventilation shafts to get below decks. They'll have the elevators shut down."
"Ventilation shafts?"
"Yeah. Otherwise you couldn't breathe down there, leastwise not very well."
It made sense, but I had a question. "Isn't all that air kind of hard on Fiona's tummy?"
"Sometimes. Every so often she burps and it all empties out. That's why you can't stay down there."
"You mean she can burp up a vehicle or two?"
"Sometimes she does, but we spray the sacs down with antispasmodics to keep that from happening often."
"Well, let's go."
It was a long trek through the ship to the stem. We passed more storerooms, then the crew's quarters, where Lori stopped to get decent. I got my shirt back. We continued aft, past the infirmary and the topside holds, through the crew's mess, the galley, and some workshops, then through a section of economy-class cabins, and finally into heating and ventilation rooms. The machinery was still running, but if the fires got out of control, it wouldn't be for long.
"What happens when the equipment shuts down?" I asked our guide as we climbed through a thicket of pipes.
"Oh, there's enough air down there to last for a while. But if Fiona gets upset over the attack, she may start burping."
"Oh."
Access to the shaft was through a tiny door in a metal cylinder into which fed a maze of piping. "This is the outtake shaft. The intake one has a bunch of filters. Watch the updraft." She held the door open for me. "There are rungs running down it."
I poked my head through and saw a tubular shaft dropping straight down into darkness. The updraft almost made me bang my head against the door frame. I took my head out and stood up. "What about light?"
"I have a torch in my kit-bag," John said. "I can lash it to my epaulets. Roland has one too, I think."
I handed him his pack, then said to Lori, "Are you coming?"
"No, I belong here," she said firmly. "I should report for
fire detail."
"Well, okay. I don't think you'll be in any danger now, except to answer to Pendergast for hiding Winnie."
"I can handle him." She frowned, and asked, "What arc you going to do down there anyway?"
"Find a place to hide," I said, "until I can convince your captain that we're no threat to him… or to the Outworlds."
"But you'll never find your way down there. You could wind up as Fiona merte."
"Well, I've been called worse."
"But you might hurt her too!" Conflicting impulses crossed and recrossed her mind. Then something hit her and her mouth hung open. "Oh, my God! Where's Winnie?"
"She's safe, down in my rig."
"Huh? How did she get down there? And why did she leave
the radio shack? I told her to―" She slapped her forehead. "The siren! The general quarters alarm is right above the shack. She must have got frightened when it went off during the gorgon attack! God, am I stupid," she groaned.
"Don't think about it. Turned out for the best anyway. Just take care of yourself." I gave her a peck on the cheek. "And thanks."
I stooped toward the hatch, but she caught my arm. "No, wait. I want to see if Winnie's all right. I'll go down fust."
The updraft actually made it easier to descend, but the rungs were small and slippery, and the shaft started tilting to an awkward
angle. I stopped now and then to look up and check everyone's progress. Darla and the men were doing all right, but Susan was struggling with her heavy backpack. I saw her lose her foothold several times, with Darla boosting her rear end back up. We continued the long descent. The air currents weakened as we got further down, then the odd angle worsened until it became a real problem to hang on, making it necessary to use the rungs as handholds only and fight for purchase with our heels against the smooth wall of the shaft, skidding and scuffing our way down. The angle was steep, but further ahead it began to level out. Before we got that far, the shaft began to move, sometimes lurching violently, banging up against us and making it hard to judge where to grab next. I heard a squeal, and before I could look back, Susan slid past me, disappearing into the darkness. Then the shaft buckled crazily and John was next to go. I reached out for him, but missed. The hand grips were almost directly above now and were impossible to grab if you were sliding. The flexible shaft was dancing like a length of rope in the wind, pitching wildly in every direction, and it was Darla's turn next, but I managed to catch her as she passed ― and lost my grip in the process.
It was a quick trip down. Very soon we were off me smooth plastic of the tube and onto a wet, warm sliding-board of organ-tissue. In the total darkness, I braced for a sudden stop, not knowing what we were sliding into, but before long I could see light ahead. Then the slope leveled out and we skidded over flat surface for a dozen meters until we stopped. We were soaking wet. A torch beam hit me and then swung to Darla. It was John, and he walked over, Susan with him.
"Interesting idea for an amusement-park ride," he said.
I got up and helped Darla to her feet. "Where are we?" I asked him.
He played the beam ahead and I saw a few parked vehicles in the distance. "Good," I said, got out Sam's key, and was about to call when something hit the back of my legs and bowled me over. It was the kid. He apologized, then groaned, as anyone would with 90 kilos of truckdriver on his chest. I got off him. John swung his light in the direction of the shaft. Lori and Roland were skating toward us like champions, then broke into a nimble trot over the treacherous surface until they reached us.
"You people were in a hurry," Lori said cheerily.
"What was all that jerking around about?" I asked.
"Oh, that's nothing. We don't bother to spray down empty areas. And the floor's so slippery because we didn't put down rosin here."
"Oh." I keyed Sam.
"Where are you now?"
'Turn on your high beams."
He wasn't more than a minute's walk away.
After me, it was Lori whom Winnie hugged when we all got in, and I was at a loss to explain how Winnie could have gotten any sense of betrayal from Darla, for clearly she had. At first, she barely acknowledged her onetime friend and interpreter. Perhaps she read the guilt in Darla's face, invisible to me, but by now Winnie's empathic powers were a given. I only wondered as to their extent. Whatever that was, I knew that Winnie's second sight was keen enough to see Darla's grief, and perhaps her regret at using Winnie as a pawn, because before long Winnie was hugging Darla too, her capacity for forgiveness and compassion probably greater than anything. It was a moment of revelation for me, because up until then I really didn't have a robust sense of Winnie's personhood, couldn't really accept her as the thinking, feeling being she obviously was. I didn't know what prejudices had gotten in the way; I have my share, but maybe the problem had been a simple lack of attention on my part. Winnie's subtle brand of personality and intelligence were easy to lose amid the gunfire, the frantic chases, the noise, and the intrigue. Her innate shyness and reticence didn't help either. All along I had caught glimmers of the light she was hiding under a bushel of soft, ape-brown hair, but I hadn't had the time nor the opportunity to groom through the shag and see what was glowing. Nor did
I now. We had to get somewhere, and quickly. But where?
"The pyloric tube between this sac and Fiona's starboard stomach-cluster would be best," Lori said.
"Sounds cozy," I said, thinking that it sounded horrible. But before we could get going, we had the kid to contend with. He said he was coming along for the ride, but was adamant about finding his car.
"I don't want my Chevy burped up like a pizza," he told us.
"Where we're going," I said, "it could wind up as whale food."
"Not my car, buddy."
I silently agreed with him. That vehicle could give anyone an ulcer. The kid borrowed John's torch and walked off into the gloom. Lori said that there was something she wanted to look for, and left too. The rest of us took the opportunity to get out of wet clothes. The digestive fluid was beginning to eat through them and irritate the skin. Susan wailed that her new suit was ruined. I told her to shove all our laundry in the Sonikleen right away.
Lori returned first, carrying a piece of gear that consisted of two tanks worn on the back, connected to a length of hose with a spraygunon the end. She explained that one tank contained aluminum hyroxide, the other an antispasmodic chemical.
"It numbs Fiona up so she doesn't get the dry heaves," she said.
About ten minutes later the kid's strange vehicle pulled alongside us in the aisle. Abused vehicles lay all around, the result of Sam's forcing his way out of the pack. I hoped Pen-dergast's insurance was paid up. I convinced the kid that the best bet would be to drive his car into the trailer. The observatory equipment only made up a quarter-load and was stashed in our special "eggcrate" section for fragile goods. We had plenty of room. Sam slid out the ramp and let him in. I went back to look the trailer over, check for damage. The stargazer stuff seemed in good shape for all the rocking it had taken, but then Sam and I specialize in hauling delicate equipment, especially scientific gear. I improvised some chock-blocks for the Chevy out of spare bracing bars from the eggcrate nook, then looped tether lines through the Chevy's shiny chromium ―
"Hey! What d'you call these things?"
"Bumpers." ― bumpers, and tied the lines off as taut as I could. It would have to do.
After Sam sealed up the trailer, we were ready. I started up and pulled away, heading for the part of the sac that was devoid of vehicles. There the floor got slippery again and started a gentle slope downward. Lori warned me to go slowly, and I took heed. The ceiling lowered and the walls got closer, the passage narrowing finally into a tunnel. The walls seeped clear fluid in glistening sheets, rolling and billowing like a flag in a soft breeze. The passage started to wind, then became serpentine. We slithered along until we encountered an obstacle, a white disk of tissue sealing off the passage like a drumhead. It was a valve. Lori told me to ease up to it and give it a nudge, which I did. After some prodding, the valve dilated and we went through. From there we wound our way back along the tube, passing more valves which plugged other passages branching to the side. We continued on the main route for a few more minutes until Lori told me to stop. She got into her spray gear and stepped out. When the door opened, an acrid, vomity stench found its way in. Everyone gagged. The walls here were more active, rippling excitedly in little waves that traversed the tube from rear to front. Lori sprayed the walls down with white goop, and in a minute or two things calmed down. She got back in. There was enough good air in the compressors to get most of the vomit-smell out, but enough lingered to make the wait uncomfortable. But we waited. "How long should we stay down here?" John asked. "Until the fight's over, whenever that is," I replied. "But if the ship is seized… well, it's anybody's guess." "We'll win," Lori said confidently. "We always do." "Why do the pirates want to take over another mega?" "Theirs is probably getting old. Megas are scarce. Who knows? They may just hate humans."
"Very likely," John said sardonically. "Humans are the beings you love to hate. Suzie, could you move over a bit?"
It was very cramped inside the cab. Everyone shifted positions in the back seat for optimum comfort. Darla and Winnie were in the aft cabin.
John began, "Strange to find pirates on―" The
rig suddenly shivered, then nosed forward and began to slide. I braked, but it did no good. We slid forward for a few meters before the tube leveled again. The walls were heaving inward now, constricting around the rig and squeezing.
"Fiona's spasming," Lori said, looking worried. "The attack must be disturbing her. I'd better spray again."
"Wait," I told her as the tube buckled and whipped around, the contractions squirting us farther forward. We waited for it to stop. "Okay, now."
We watched Lori spray the tunnel around us liberally. The rig got shoved forward again and I had to give Lori a blast on the horn to warn her. She turned, lost her footing and slipped, but crawled out of the way in time. She continued spraying until she ran out of stuff, then mounted the boarding rungs to get back in. Just as she got her head through the hatch, Fiona spasmed again and the rig jerked forward. The edge of the hatchway caught Lori smartly against the side of the head. Roland reached and caught her before she fell out. He hauled her in and the hatch slammed shut by itself. The tube twitched and jittered all around us, the floor dropping out from under again, and we slid along the pyloric tube like the undigested bit of food that we were. This time we didn't stop. I didn't want to reverse the transmission, thinking that the rasp of the rollers would only irritate Fiona more. The walls continued their inexorable urging, closing over the rig like wet folds of cloth, leaving smears of fluid across the ports.
"Hang on, everybody! Get strapped in as best you can. Get Lori strapped into the bunk."
A temporary lull allowed them to get Lori bedded down and secured, then the spasming began again. Roland got thrown forward and whumped up against my seat.
"Hang on to something!" I barked. "I don't want any more casualties." Then I laughed to myself. To be Fiona-merte was our destiny right then, and I couldn't see a way out of it.
It was an endless fateful journey. We got bounced, buffeted, and thrown around. The organ walls bore down relentlessly, slobbering over the hull of the rig. We rolled counterclockwise, went over forty-five degrees, then came back to vertical and keeled over the other way all the way to ninety and stayed there.
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