Hunted lop-4

by James Alan Gardner

  "What do you think?" she asked. "Is it going to eat us?"

  "I don’t know," I said. "It sure likes pretending it wants to eat us… but that might be its idea of a joke. Jumping out and going, ‘Boo!’ at the lower species. If the Balrog really wanted to have us for supper, it could have done that long ago."

  "Maybe it’s just following its own code of ethics," Festina suggested. "Can’t eat anyone who keeps a respectful distance, but if you actually step on a spore, you’re fair game."

  She had a point. Maybe if you stepped on a bunch of moss, it actually hurt the spores — I’d get hurt if someone walked all over me. In that case, the Balrog might feel perfectly justified in biting your feet.

  I glanced back at the palace’s palisade. Outside, the Black Army was massing for its final assault, with ramps and battering rams and siege towers. Even worse, four Laughing Larries had taken up positions just inside one section of wall; by the look of it, they’d soon open fire, slaughtering nearby guards as the attackers began smashing their way in.

  Whatever we needed to do, we’d better do it fast. Time to try a trick. "Give me a second," I told Festina. Then I closed my eyes and thought of pheromones.

  Here are the pheromones I’d made: the lust scent that got Festina talking about judo mats; the "don’t be scared" smell I’d used to comfort Counselor; the royal pheromone that screamed, "Obey me now!" Some of those chemicals worked on humans, some worked on Mandasars. I didn’t know if I could make something to work on Balrogs… but Balrogs could "taste" pheromones so maybe the darned moss could be affected too.

  Back on the orbital I’d tried to make a Balrog repellant and Kaisho had got real mad: Stop it, Edward, before you produce something deadly. Okay — maybe it was dangerous, trying to make the Balrog go away… but what if I made it nice?

  I pictured a different sort of royal pheromone: not one to subdue peasants, but one that spoke to rulers. A scent that said, Some people end up in positions of power; and if you’re the one who comes out on top, you have to be good about it. You have to do the right thing, and never ever act like a jerk.

  It wasn’t a fancy sentiment, and any philosopher would nitpick it to pieces… but the Balrog and me, we had things in common. If we really wanted, we could both run roughshod over normal folks; so we had to take special care not to. Do the right thing and don’t act like a jerk. That was a rule I wanted to follow myself, and I wanted the Balrog to follow it too. I tried to make a pheromone that would stir some sense of scruples in a bunch of glowing alien spores…

  …and as I stood there on the edge of the ramparts, the spores just drifted away — slid silently off Plebon and the Mandasars, sifted over the parapet stones, and drew back to the stairwell. Ten seconds later, Dade was still covered in fuzz but the rest of the area was absolutely clear.

  "Holy shit," Festina whispered. "Did you do that?"

  "Um. Maybe."

  "With pheromones?"

  "Maybe."

  She shuddered. "Makes me glad I’m wearing this tight-suit. If you can drive off the Balrog, you probably smell like the rear end of something whose front end is dead."

  "No," I said. "I smell like conscience." Then I stepped over the rampart wall and onto the parapet.

  Fast as we could, we heaved Plebon and the Mandasars onto the top of the glass cube. The unconscious Zeeleepull took a ton of work and when we were finished, his shell had a bunch of new dents and scratches… but at least we got everybody safely onto the cube’s upper surface. No way we could get them all inside — it would take a heavy-duty winch to lower Zeeleepull through that hole in the roof — but if Tobit could hold the cube level as it flew, our friends would be safe where they were.

  Provided Tobit could fly the cube at all.

  "Ready to go?" Tobit yelled up through the hole.

  Festina looked back at the parapet. Kaisho and her wheelchair still sat in the mouth of the stairwell. The admiral paused a moment longer, then sighed. "Hold on a minute, Phylar. One more passenger to pick up."

  I was already hopping onto the parapet one last time. The main mass of Balrog had retreated a bit down the ramp, leaving Kaisho sitting out on her own. She’d slumped good and limp when Dade shot her with the stunner; but as we grabbed the arms of her chair, she lifted her head. "That won’t be necessary," she whispered.

  Festina jerked in surprise. She let go of the chair and balled her hands into fists; but after a second she let her hands relax. "You recover amazingly fast from being stunned," she told Kaisho. "Most organisms stay unconscious for six hours."

  "Only if they have conventional nervous systems," Kaisho replied. "I’ve gone a bit beyond that."

  "Were you unconscious at all?"

  "Part of me," she admitted. "As for the other part… it’s thrilled not to be linked with Alexander York."

  "There are still versions of him on Celestia and New Earth," Festina said.

  "Not in working condition," Kaisho replied. "When the Balrog retrieved that gizmo from the clone’s gullet, we used it to send a shot of feedback along the line. One good focused pulse of psychic energy… and the containers inside the other two Admiral Yorks suffered rather spectacular meltdowns. At the time, the New Earth version of the bastard was sitting with the entire High Council at Admiralty HQ. His death made quite a splash. Consider it a windfall for the other admirals’ dry cleaners." She turned to me. "Should I offer my condolences or my congratulations?"

  "Um."

  I didn’t like my father. I didn’t like my sister either, not once I learned all the awful things she’d been doing. It seemed really dumb to be sad they were gone.

  But then, I’ve always been dumb, haven’t I?

  47

  PUSHING BACK THE ENEMY

  A booming thud hit the palace’s west gate: the first slam of a battering ram. "No more time," Festina snapped. "Hang on, Kaisho, you’re coming with us."

  "Where?"

  "Anywhere the Black Army isn’t." She pointed to the hoverchair’s controls. "Fire up your engines and let’s go."

  "No need," Kaisho said. "We’re safe here."

  Another boom smashed the gates. The Black Army’s Laughing Larries spun into a full hyena cackle, their whoops echoing off the palace’s stonework. Any second they’d open fire.

  "Hear that?" Festina asked. "Nobody’s safe, not tonight. Even your precious Balrog should worry. Those troops are surely prepared to burn every speck of moss they see. No matter how fast spores can eat through an enemy’s shell, fire works faster."

  "There is no enemy," Kaisho replied. "Not anymore. We’ve dealt with Admiral York, and everybody left is just an innocent pawn."

  "Those pawns have been ordered to kill, and there’s no one to call them off."

  "They’ll call themselves off, dear Festina… if we demonstrate there are forces in the universe that lesser species shouldn’t fuck with."

  "Uh-oh," Festina said. "You aren’t going to… remember, you just called them innocent pawns."

  "Of course," Kaisho answered sweetly. "But as Teelu told you a few minutes ago, the Balrog loves jumping out and going, ‘Boo!’ "

  Another boom banged above the Larries’ howl. The noise was followed by a heavy crunching sound… but the crunch didn’t come from the army at the palace gates. I looked toward the front of the palace, out where the moss was thickest. It had blazed up bright and angry, a furious fuzzy crimson all over the stonework queen’s head and her four claws.

  One of the claws was trying to wrench itself off its foundations.

  Slowly, ponderously, the claw crunched back and forth, as if it was stuck in a bit of mud and just needed to be teased.loose. The moss on the wriggling claw flared another notch brighter… and suddenly the claw was moving freely, a building wing four stories tall, lifting into the air.

  The claw flexed once, as if it was stiff from lying immobile for so long. Mortar crackled and dust showered put from between cracks in the stone, but the whole thing held together somehow: from the shee
r telekinetic force of a trillion Balrog spores showing off their strength. Without a pause, another claw began to work itself free.

  "If I were you," Kaisho told Festina, "I’d hop onto that glass cube and head a hundred meters straight up."

  "It’s going to get dangerous down here?"

  "No, the Balrog won’t hurt anybody. But you’re going to kick yourself if you don’t go high enough to get a good view."

  She caught Festina’s gloved hand and pulled it to her lips for a kiss. As she did, the hair covering her face slid aside; with a squirm in my stomach, I saw crimson moss now coated her cheeks, her forehead, even bristly wads over her eyes. There was no way she could possibly see through that glowing fuzz… but I guess Kaisho had reached the point where the moss did her seeing for her.

  "Go," she said to Festina: a single word, spoken in a real human voice, not her usual whisper.

  Then Kaisho turned to me and held out her hand. A bit reluctantly, I came forward and took it. She clasped both hands around mine and drew me in gently, so I was forced to crouch up close to her. "Teelu" she whispered, her breath brushing my cheek, "a pity we won’t be working together. I would have enjoyed touching my mind to yours. But you’ve persuaded the Balrog not to embrace you as its own. Others have prior claim on you."

  "Who?" I asked.

  She gave me a little kiss on the nose. "Your people," she whispered, "as you know full well. You still consider yourself unintelligent, Teelu; it’s charming, but you’ll have to grow out of it. Kings need confidence."

  Before I could answer, she put her finger to my mouth to stop me from speaking. Next thing I knew, her voice was talking right inside my head. "Sometime in the next eighteen years, Teelu, I’ll visit you, wherever you are. The Balrog believes it would be amusing for you and me to have a child: mostly human, but with your control of pheromones and my enhanced mental abilities. Apparently, this is why the Balrog fused with me in the first place; and for twenty-five years, it’s been transforming my body chemistry to make such a pregnancy possible. A few more years, and I’ll be ready." She leaned forward and kissed me with her moss-covered lips. "It’s a bitch dealing with precognitive races. But if everything I’ve gone through is gearing me up for a night with you… well, life has its compensations, doesn’t it?"

  "Um… what if I don’t think this is such a good idea?"

  "It’s not an idea, Teelu — it’s fate. Already written by the Mother of Time. Relax and accept that some evening you’ll find something warm and fuzzy in your bed."

  She laughed out loud… probably at the look on my face. Then her hoverchair rocketed down the stairwell a hundred times faster than it’d ever moved before. The sound of her laughter echoed long after she was gone.

  Festina grabbed my arm. "Let’s go, Edward. Things are going to get crazy real fast." I pulled myself away from looking down the empty stairwell and glanced toward the front of the building. All four claws had ripped themselves free, and now the queen’s head was pushing itself up. The stone under my feet rocked slightly… just a little tremor, but I still wobbled for a moment, off balance.

  "Yeah," I said, "going sounds good."

  We ran to the edge of the roof and threw ourselves over the wall, onto the glass cube. Even as I jumped, another tremor shivered through the stone beneath me — the queen’s head had risen, and now she was lifting her body on its eight legs.

  Far below, things popped and groaned inside the building: walls tearing away from floors, support beams breaking, furniture toppling over. A stream of palace guards charged out a ground-floor door, all of them screaming martial battle cries and brandishing crossbows in search of someone to shoot. They must have thought the Black Shoulders had started the building shaking by clobbering the walls with battering rams. When the guards saw huge masonry claws waving high over their heads, they screamed again. This time, it didn’t sound nearly so martial.

  Festina scrambled over the glass roof and stuck her head through the hole in the cube. "Phylar! Are you ready to fly this thing?"

  "Maybe."

  "Make it yes, and make it now. Straight up till we’re clear of this mess."

  "Easy for you to say," he grumbled.

  He reached out and hesitantly nudged a slider control. Without a sound, the cube rose lazily; I was poised near the bodies of our unconscious friends, ready to catch them if they started to slide off… but the cube’s motion was so smooth, they didn’t shift a millimeter. Keeping level, never giving the slightest lurch, Tobit took us into the air as slowly as smoke rising.

  The scene below wasn’t nearly so placid. Out near the first canal, the Black Army must have heard the crashes and creaks of the palace coming alive, but they couldn’t possibly guess what was making the noise. Their line of sight was blocked by the high palisade walls; perhaps they thought the ripping and rumbling came from some kind of weapon being trundled into place. The attackers continued to work their battering rams, smashing at the gates again and again, hoping to get inside before the defenders could get the weapon ready. They had no idea what was happening to the palace till the gates fell open and the Black Shoulders surged onto the grounds.

  With impeccable timing — of course — that was the exact same moment the Balrog finished detaching the entire palace from its foundations. As the Black Army charged through the gates, they were greeted by a huge stone queen, four stories tall and larger than a city block, her shell blazing scarlet with angry moss.

  Mandasar warriors are as brave as any creature in the universe, but even they have their limits.

  For a moment, much of the Black Army simply froze. They watched as the queen’s four claws, each bigger than a house, swept through the air over their heads and caught the Laughing Larries that were supposed to give covering fire. The claws slammed shut with the sound of thunder, solid stone walls whacking together… and when they opened again, four gold-colored lumps of scrap metal flopped to the ground like crushed walnuts. No more hyena laughing. But the night was far from quiet.

  The claws rose again, high enough to clear the heads of the attackers but not by much. Then they clacked their pincers a few times, showering the troops below with whatever dirt had accumulated on the palace walls over the years: stone dust and insect carcasses, bird nests and chips of old paint, dried-out flakes of autumn leaves and clots of mud daubed by playing children. All of it rained on the soldiers beneath, as if the queen was just brushing her hands off before getting set for serious fighting. When the spill of debris was finished, the claws came down onto the palace lawn and began to push forward like huge snowplows, ready to shove the Black Army back over the canal.

  The shove wasn’t needed. With a jumble of confused bellows the warriors fell back, some trying to maintain an orderly retreat, others simply running. A few held their ground, till not-very-gentle nudges from the stone walls knocked them back into the canal.

  Possibly, some of the generals tried to contact Samantha for new orders. When they got no answer, they made a decision on their own: strategic withdrawal. Within fifteen minutes, the battle for the palace was over.

  48

  WINDING DOWN

  I won’t bother you with details of the next few hours. What’s the point in describing, say, the trouble we went to, getting Innocence out of the cube? Unless you’re a fan of techniques for using block and tackle, you don’t want me going on at length; so let’s just give you the short form.

  Innocence survived, and came through without permanent injury. The people inside the palace turned out safe and sound too; when the building started walking about, they reported being held in place by "an invisible force" till the excitement was over.

  Kaisho disappeared in the confusion; she hasn’t been seen since. I guess she’ll show up eventually, expecting me to take her to bed. I’ve kind of decided I will — considering how the Balrog stopped the battle and saved thousands of lives, I owe the moss a favor. (Even if the idea of producing a spore-baby is really really gross.)

  Unl
ike my father, Benjamin Dade wasn’t completely consumed by the moss that enveloped him… just nibbled a lot. We lugged him to the infirmary but Gashwan decided he couldn’t be treated — the Balrog had invaded his bloodstream, his nervous system, every part of his innards. Trying to remove the spores would kill him; but if we left him alone, he’d live out his normal span, the same as Kaisho.

  Eventually, Innocence made Dade a centerpiece on Diplomats Row, set on a small pedestal like a moss-covered statue. He still gets regular meals and plenty of light, not to mention all kinds of people to talk with. Sometimes he complains how unfair it is, that he’s become a fuzzy paralytic; other times, he goes all spacey and gives incomprehensible prognostications that he claims come from the Balrog. A lot of folks think he invents the predictions on his own, but they visit him anyway: Mandasars who want to know what crops to plant, human kids asking who they’ll marry, that sort of thing.

  If you want the honest truth, Dade loves the attention. It’s not how he envisioned his life, but deep down, he’s tickled by it.

  Dawn came up warm but cloudy gray. I sat with Festina and Tobit, dangling our feet on the edge of one of the trenches in the palace lawn, watching envoys scurry between the palace and Black Army headquarters. We got pretty good at guessing which messengers would tell us, "Talks are going well," and which would say, "I’m very, very worried." From what I knew of diplomats, things were pretty much on track. No one wanted to fight anymore; they just had a lot of bluster that needed to blow itself out.

  Somewhere back in the palace, our friends would soon be waking up: it’d been almost six hours since they’d got shot by Dad and Dade. We’d left them in a corner of the infirmary, with instructions on how to find us when they came to. Gashwan wouldn’t let us wait anywhere nearby — us and our filthy human germs — so we’d gone outside to cool our heels and watch the sun rise.

  Festina and Tobit had taken off their helmets long ago. Ever since they’d cannibalized their tightsuit power supplies, their personal cooling systems had been out of order; as Tobit put it, "We’re sweating our fucking bags off." Opening the helmets helped air circulate inside the suits, but as the day warmed up, their "bags" would sweat even more. The two of them were discussing whether to take off the rest of their suits — and where to find replacement clothes, since Festina only wore a light chemise under the suit while Tobit had nothing at all — when the admiral suddenly cocked her ear and whispered, "Listen!"