The interstate soared here, rising high above deep, wooded valleys. With Erwin's traffic behind them, they sped over the treetops and south, toward the westward exit.
Suddenly Vooorh sat up straight in her tub. "They are here," she hissed. "They are below us!"
A familiar wind rose from below the roadway. It buffeted them from the right, pacing them for long seconds just beyond the railing. Then it whipped directly overhead, blocking the sun. The Jeep swerved from side to side. The car ahead nearly sideswiped another and Jason braked sharply. Other brakes squealed from behind as he steadied the Jeep and avoided the traffic ahead.
Almost instantly, the sun reappeared and the wind was gone.
"That was them again, right?" Jason said, hands tight on the wheel.
"Yes. They have gone very high now."
"I still didn't see a thing," he said, and drove a minute in silence. "I wonder what the other drivers think."
"A freak wind," Vooorh said. "That is all."
"Yes, but the sun!"
"A freak wind and a cloud."
"I guess you're right." His grip had almost relaxed when a patrol car slowed to check them out. It drove on in moments, but his fingers clenched again.
He took a breath and tried to relax.
"They are very high, you say?"
"Yes, they will watch where we go."
"So they'll be waiting for us somewhere ahead."
"Yes. Not long now."
"Not long," he muttered, not the least bit relaxed, as he slowed for the off-ramp to the west. He shook his hurt hand absently. It had begun to sting.
The pass cut east to west through the heights of the National Forest, the slim road twisting along the north bank of a boulder-filled, whitewater stream. On their left, beyond the river, the south bank climbed in steep, forested slopes. To the right, a sheer stone bluff edged the roadbed, narrowing the valley to little more than the width of the river.
A few hollows in the cliffside or a patch of soil wedged into a kink of the river gave the only hints of life along the road: tufts of greenery, a lonely home and garden plot, a tiny store. Otherwise the gorge was deserted. Six short miles, whose curves would slow them to a crawl.
At one place he knew, near the far end of the gap, it would pinch almost to a close. He thought on that stretch as he navigated the twists and turns along the river.
Vooorh stared upward as they crept along. Jason watched her in the rearview, one eye on the winding road. A mile went by with no change, then a low hiss from the tub. Shep gave an almost silent growl.
"How close?"
"Near the mountain tops. Following."
Jason sped up, taking the next curve with a broad sway.
"Any change?"
"They stay above us."
Jason slowed.
"Something else we need to talk about," he said. "I know your people hate violence. I do myself, whatever you think. But sometimes..."
"I have seen your guns," she said. "And the bullets you bought."
"And?"
"And... it is dishonor to violate our principles. But there are times when we have no choice."
Jason let out a breath. "The bullets in two of the guns are salt," he said.
There was a thump from the tub. "You have seawater in bullets?"
"No, rock salt. Dry, in chunks. Don't you have that on your world?"
"Yes. But why...?"
"It stings, but doesn't kill. We use it when we just want to drive something—or someone—away. But if it should come to it..." He watched her still face in the rearview. "Where can I shoot them with real bullets and do the least harm?"
"Any limb," she said, "But then they are worssssse."
"Worse!" He risked a look at her. "How? And how fast?"
"From a wounded limb they can grow many more. In only a week."
A week. All right. "But when they are shot, how are they affected then?"
"They lose fluids. Not fast, but too much. And they must have more." Her voice deepened. "They are fierce till that time comes."
"Weapons?"
"They copy yours, but they do not shoot as well."
"Do you know how many—?"
"Only four," she said, "but they are the worst."
Her gaze trailed skyward, then back, staring at him in the mirror.
"The gun with the real bullets, which is it?"
"The heaviest one," he said. "Where are they now?"
"They wait, not far ahead. But they may return."
The air was growing colder as the sun settled toward the peaks. Jason closed his window, left the other one open for Shep.
"What are they doing while they wait? Are they planning a trap?"
"It is possible. These consider themselves clever."
"So we hurry to meet them," Jason said, and floored it.
It was a near fatal mistake. As they swung into the next curve, speeding toward the river, the "chuf-chuf" sounded again. Shep whined as something hit Jason's door with a scraping sound. The Jeep bucked. They lurched onto the shoulder, sliding toward the narrow ledge above the rocks.
Pedal down, Jason struggled for control. He wrestled the wheel to the right, away from the river. Loose gravel flying, hands sweaty, sore palm on fire.
Still he held it. Inch by inch, the Jeep clawed its way off the ledge, onto the rough shoulder, back onto blacktop.
Braking then, with quick, light strokes. Holding to the road by main strength as it curved right, then left, then right again. But slowing, slowing. Till at last, hands trembling, he brought the Jeep to a stop in a narrow space at the base of the cliff.
He switched off the motor.
Silence.
"Have they gone?"
"Yes. But they may come back."
Of course. What other answer was there? Jason pulled himself from the Jeep, weak-kneed, to check the damage.
He touched a deep gouge in the driver side door, then looked at the tires. "Big hole in the left front," he said. "They missed me, but the tire caught the bullet. Bad spot too, in that curve. We're lucky we're not in the river."
He laid a salt-loaded shotgun across the Jeep's hood, ready to hand. Then he refilled Vooorh's bottle with saltwater, dampened her bedding, and went to dismount the spare from the rear hatch. It took both hands to loosen the bolt, which was not easy with his sore palm. But he worked at it till the bolt came free and he leaned the spare tire against the Jeep. Working mostly with his right hand, he set the jack and began to crank. His palm didn't hurt as much, but it slowed him. He should have been done by now.
He was loosening the lugs when a deep rumble echoed from somewhere down the gorge. The rock beneath him trembled. In the Jeep, Vooorh hissed. Shep looked up from sniffing the rocks, his ears pricked.
"That was west of us," Jason said. "Not too far ahead. Do you think—?"
The rumble was back again, this time from the east.
"They are coming." Vooorh said. "They have done something to keep others away. They will fight us here."
Jason threw the spare and his tools into the Jeep and took up the shotgun, grimacing as he chambered a shell. He checked his watch—almost six—and glanced up the bluff close beside them. The light was beginning to dim.
"Not a bad spot for a fight," he said, "with the mountain at our back." He leaned into the Jeep for the other salt gun and shells, and gave Vooorh a careful look. Her color was better.
"Get down in the tub," he said. "If they come in low, climb out and scrunch down—hide—between the Jeep and the rock, there, by the rear wheel. I'll take the front one." He backed out of the Jeep and shut the passenger door, setting the boxes of salt shells on the running board.
"Shep, heel!"
The dog trotted to him as Vooorh hissed again.
"They are here," she said. "Just over the road."
Jason looked. The light over the river dimmed, wavered, and shifted into something not quite right. A sharp mechanical smell filled the air. Peering into the odd patch of
haze, straining to pick out the lander, he barely noticed when Vooorh pulled on her tank and eeled out the cliffside window. Seconds later she'd braced the third shotgun on the top of the Jeep and fired buckshot toward the far side of the road.
The discharge so near the rock face nearly deafened Jason. He stared, openmouthed, first at Vooorh, then back across the road, where something flashed a dozen feet in the air.
The light over the roadway wavered again as the flash seared forward through the air, then turned right, and a van-sized craft from another world shimmered into view a few feet above the far roadside. The flash burned on, toward him now, then left, following the edges of the craft's flat roof. In an instant it closed the square, flickering out at the point where it had begun.
The sound of the shot still echoed down the gorge.
Jason tore his gaze from the lander to stare at Vooorh. Pumping another cartridge into the chamber, she stepped from the running board and lowered the shotgun from her "shoulder," a dense bulge of muscle that relaxed as he watched into the familiar, sloping profile of her tentacle.
A few "chuf-chufs" came from the lander. A scattering of rock splinters rained down the cliff. Jason ignored them.
"How the hell did you do that?"
"I know how the lander hides itself," she said. "And I know where to shoot. I have repaired it many times."
The strong light, Jason saw, was back in her eyes. Clearly it was not fear.
"But the shotgun, how did you know...?"
"We watch. And we learn. Look, they are coming out."
The lander door slid open as she spoke.
"Get down," Jason said. Vooorh crouched between the rear tire and rock wall, looking through the Jeep's back windows.
Jason watched over the hood as two mottled, reddish-blackish, vaguely crab-shaped creatures dropped into the far lane some twenty feet away.
Each landed on its two rear-most legs, standing maybe four feet tall. They shortened as they settled onto a second, midbody pair, four footed now, leaving the forward limbs to handle their firearms. They looked around with stiff, jerky movements. Their heads and faces, like their bodies, were covered in shell.
"How do they talk?" Jason asked.
"Not well. But they know what you say. Even English."
A third crab had leapt from the lander, flailing awkwardly with eight, maybe ten flimsy arms sprouting from each forward limb. Unbalanced, it landed hard, barely keeping its head off the asphalt.
Jason stared. "He—"
"She," Vooorh said.
"She's been wounded before?"
"No. She did that to herself, to be more fearsome." Vooorh made a deep guttural sound. "She made too many limbs. They are too small and weak to help her."
The crab shapes started across the road, the first two brandishing pistols. The third picked up pebbles from the roadway in her many tiny hands. They rained onto the Jeep with surprising force and a sound like falling hail.
Weak, huh? Jason leveled one of the salt guns over the hood at the slowly advancing crabs. He waited a beat till the first two took aim, then he fired, and chambered another round.
Faint patches of white powder spotted the crabs' limbs and torsos as rock salt smashed on shell plates and the asphalt road. Loud, hissing screams and a slow ooze of bluish fluid told him some of the salt had gotten through. Both firearms clunked onto the road as the male crabs clawed at their shells.
The female, shielded behind the males, gave a spate of angry hisses and peppered the Jeep with more stones. Crouching low behind the front tire, Jason tried to aim around it without getting pelted. Before he could fire the female began to scream.
"The salt," Vooorh hissed. "It is eating their shells. They will die!" She paled. "I will too, and faster, if the salt reaches me." She tossed the shotgun onto the passenger seat and dived through the window after it, sloshing into her tub.
Jason stared over the Jeep's hood, horrified. The crabs huddled in the road.
"It's the water, isn't it? Their bodies have more than..."
"Yes! And the mucous lets it eat into the shell!"
Jason thought fast. "Do they have fluids in the lander?"
"Some, I think. Not enough."
"How do I get the other one out of there?"
Vooorh gave a little trill Jason hadn't heard before. "The female," she said. "Threaten the female with the salt, and he will come."
"I can do better than that." He yanked off his bandage, wincing as he braced a salt gun on either hip, ready to fire. He told Shep "Stay!" and hurried around the Jeep, kicked the crabs' weapons away, and took aim at the males with his lefthand gun.
His hand shook, and one crab raised his head, watching. But Jason held his aim on the males as he moved closer to the female, aiming point-blank at her head with the right-hand gun. The thin shell on her many small arms oozed fluids onto the asphalt in large blue drops.
"Better get out here now," Jason yelled at the lander. "With all the fluids you can carry."
The lander dropped to the roadway with a jolt and the door slid open. Jason swung the right shotgun briefly that way. "Just fluids," he said. "Anything else and you get a dose of the same."
In moments the fourth crab dropped into the roadway, his forward and mid-body arms filled with gray tanks like water balloons, large and small.
"Wash out the broken places and get them back on board, quick as you can," Jason told him. "Then go back to your ship. They're gonna need help." He looked down at the female. "I think you'd better start with her."
The crab opened a spout on a small tank and set it carefully into the female's strongest forearms. As she drank, he took up a larger tank, spraying her limbs and torso and washing out the wounds where the salt had corroded the shell. The ooze slowed, and he went to look after the others.
Jason watched as each was treated, the tanks were stowed, and all climbed back on board, aiming black, crablike glares in his direction.
With the merest whisper, the craft faded upward through gathering shadow.
"This time they will not be back," Vooorh said, hooded in blankets well doused with the last of the water. Not a trace of the squared eye look remained. "Your hand hurts you, yes?"
"Forgot all about it," Jason said. "How about your shoulders?"
"I forgot about them too."
The little trill sounded again. "You could not shoot more than twice, you know, with two shotguns. You cannot pump-load either gun while you hold them both."
"Could if I had to," Jason said. "But shooting them wasn't the point, was it?"
"So. Maybe Father is right. Maybe you are not a primitive people after all."
Jason shrugged, pulled on his jacket, and got the lug wrench from the Jeep. Dismounting the flat, he noticed the crabs' weapons, still on the ground. He lifting them with two careful fingers, wrapped them in a spare bag and handed them to Vooorh.
"For your Father," he said.
From somewhere in her nest she retrieved the bag of poison disks, added it to the bag with the pistols, and stashed it all away, then snuggled down again in her watery nest.
Jason finished with the flat and was stowing the tire and tools when a patrol car came around the bend from the west. He stood wiping his hands by the driver-side door, hiding the gouge the bullet had made. The trooper pulled up beside him.
"Been some freak landslides," he said, "both sides of you, just a little while ago." He looked at Jason curiously, then at Shep. "You must have been stopped awhile, to be so late coming through. I heard chatter about you and your dog. Everything okay?"
Jason gestured to the tire in the back of the Jeep. "Picked up a nail, I guess. And the lugs were kinda tight." He grinned, an old man amused at himself. "They seem harder to loosen than they used to. And I did let the old boy walk a bit." He tousled Shep's ears and the trooper smiled.
"Well, they've cleared the worst of it up ahead. Just take it easy and you'll be fine." He waved and eased the patrol car eastward toward the Interstate.
>
When everything was stowed, Jason whistled Shep into the Jeep.
"Your rock salt is very strong," Vooorh said as he climbed in.
"It's concentrated when it dries, much stronger than seawater." He shook his head. "I am so sorry. I never thought—"
"I did not think either, and I should have known." She paused. "And it is shameful to say that part of me, after what they did to me, is glad." She looked at him in the mirror. "It was my dishonor, Jason, more than yours."
He fired up the Jeep and drove on into the twilight, smiling.
Vooorh had called him by name. And he knew now what it was, that light in her eyes.
It was hope. And fierce determination.
Not a solution. Far from it.
But hope.
Sara would be pleased.
* * *
Journeyer
R. Garrett Wilson | 3749 words
Four days earlier, when she had stopped eating and drinking, Jo-abeel began running thirty-two miles each evening in addition to her morning runs, measuring the distance against the loss of excess weight. Her thighs had drained of water, and the hump on her back was sagging, but she wasn't even winded at the end of the last run, a run in which she had added eight more miles.
Running earned Jo-abeel odd looks from the other muuks; they focused on movements that required as little energy and fluid as possible, movements that were slow and sure. She toweled the sweat from the fur on her neck, another action that gained attention. Muuks did not normally sweat: due to controlled activity levels, they did not need to cool themselves, even in the desert. Jo-abeel knew that sweating was draining and potentially lethal, but she theorized that it made the Journey more possible. She also knew they had limited water rations, and sweating was wasteful.
Jo-abeel's run took her past the schools, and she could see her youngest niece, Sallii-abeel, a thick muuk who attracted the bulls. She was starting her molt, maturing a little young for her age. White tufts of adolescent hair stuck out of her thick brown baby coat at the neck and knees. Sooner or later, depending on how much Sallii-abeel scratched, she would begin a full molt. Unfortunately, she was already scratching, a lot— may the gods be merciful.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-07 Page 23
