by Paul Kidd
“Oh! Indeed, indeed!” The man did indeed have a sword: a long, slim thing that looked as though it might make someone an excellent curtain rod. “But marksmanship’s the thing! A well pointed pistol – that’s the ticket.”
“And you point them often?”
“Oh! Well one tries to be a man of peace! A beacon of rationality. Sometimes a word or a sympathetic ear is far better than force…”
“Well you might want to try more than strong language on those Screamers…” Snapper stood in her stirrups and patted Onan on the neck. “Have you ever come across monsters before?”
“Not really. A few odd creatures here and there. But nothing too dire. Travel has been wonderfully rewarding. Always a new surprise at every corner!” The man preened long foxy whiskers. He cast an eye over Snapper’s curves and the sinuous sweep of her tail. “Now you, madam! You are certainly a woman well worth suffering the wilds for!” The man bowed with a flourish. “I was unaware that the world of the north held such astonishing beauty.”
Snapper sucked on a great saw-edged tooth. She eyed the man thoughtfully, then clucked Onan forward into the dark.
“Why don’t you just keep your eyes on the bush, and let’s see if we can avoid becoming din-dins for the larvae.” The shark rode on. “Come on, and keep quiet.”
He was watching her tail and her backside – she could definitely feel it. Snapper headed off into the dark and led past a stand of blinking grass trees. Beneath her, Onan fluffed out his feathers. The bird looked back at Snapper and gave a salty chuckle.
“Pretty boy!”
“Oh quiet!”
The shark swished her long tail and rode on into the dark.
Sharp ridges of rock and brambles ran across the plains. Snapper and the ever sociable Captain Beau encountered one after another. The riding birds could move easily amongst the rocks, sometimes leaping from boulder to boulder – but the wagons needed gradual slopes and far more open ground. Snapper led the way, ranging south along each ridge until a rough passageway could be found. She signalled back towards the distant wagons, waiting until a light flashed back in return.
Long hours passed. Snapper sagged in the saddle, shaking herself awake. She needed tea – she needed a decent sleep, and her backside was slowly going numb from the saddle. But the convoy progressed west, away from the hills. They were making distance steadily, if slowly. But every kilometre gained was an invaluable margin of safety.
There were no further sounds of Screamers in the dark. Night time on the plains was a good time for wandering giga-moths, but Snapper could see none of the annoying creatures silhouetted in the sky. Night beasts ran and flitted through the scrub, and a few predators called far off in the dark, but all seemed normal enough. It was a quiet night in the wilds.
After the third ridge was passed, the land dropped down to great fields of scree, crossing shattered old roads. Ruins hereabout had all been combed through long ago, providing metal, scrap and artefacts to bring life to good old Spark Town. The first stark, grey light of pre-dawn found Snapper and Captain Beau riding side by side across a gravel field, their shadows stretched long across the dust. Flocks of dandelion birds wheeled somewhere off against the coming dawn. A few huge walker trees were migrating across the plains. To the west, tree lines showed the presence of a meandering watercourse. Snapper reined in, and the exhausted Onan halted on a rocky crest. Beau’s budgerigar clattered up beside them, and the fox-pheasant stood to quietly survey all about. The air was fresh – charged with the scent of petrichor as dust mingled with the morning dew. The first hint of gold began to edge above the eastern horizon, lighting up parched brown hills.
Beau pushed back his cap and joined Snapper in gazing off towards the dawn.
“Magnificent.” His voice was hushed. For once, he seemed utterly absorbed. “I do see why you love it so. I do indeed.”
A honk from above announced the genteel arrival of Throckmorton. The flying plant circled gently down, wings fluttering merrily. Odd little floral heads peered down, some smiling and others merely looking hungry.
The plant signed a polite hello, and passed a flat little blackboard down into Snapper’s hands. The blackboard had been written upon in chalk, using a sweeping, expressive hand. Snapper held the message in one hand and looked at it over the rims of her glasses.
“From the mantis, I would presume.”
“Ah – the intrepid scholar!” Beau breathed in a sigh like a contented connoisseur. “She has a certain delicious energy about her. A most becoming creature.”
“Yeah – you might want to forgo romancing that one. Could be a good way to get your head bitten clean off.” The shark read the message. “It says here: ‘Dustcloud behind us on wagon trail. Distance ten kilometres.” Snapper looked back towards the caravan. “Bugger.”
The Screamers were on the move.
Throckmorton seemed unruffled, not being especially high on the Screamer’s list of potential hosts, and also quite capable of drifting up out of reach. The plant played with a hardwood yoyo carved out of magnificent red burl, waiting for the ground creatures to finish their deliberations. Snapper turned Onan back to the west and checked the tree line. Wiping clean the blackboard with her sleeve, she accepted a piece of white chalk from the plant and hastily scribbled a note back to the wagon train.
“Right, we want them across the open ground and out of sight, quick as we can! We’re going to tell them to charge the wagons! Run – fast as they can, straight to the creek line.” She signed to the floating plant. “They must charge here to the creek! At the gallop. Hurry!”
Throckmorton saluted, ceased playing with his yoyo, and bore the message off, back across the ridges towards the wagon train. Beau blinked, looking from the creek line to the rock ridges behind them – a distance of five kilometres or more.
“Madam! What are you thinking? Do you plan to somehow defend the creek?” The man waved his taloned finger, very much disturbed by the idea. “No no no no no! The Screamers will simply find another place to cross!”
“Yeah – I reckon they might be following the wagons by scent.” Snapper was carefully looking at the trees lining the distant creek: tall, heavy trees, signifying a steady water supply. “If there’s enough water flowing, we might be able to shake them by driving the wagons downstream.”
The birds were tiring. Onan muttered, and Snapper reached forward to feed him a salty cracker unasked.
“OK boy. Good birdie. We gotta run now.”
The bird fluffed out its crest. “Sleepy now.”
“No sleepy – we’ll get eaten.”
“No eat birdie.”
“No eat birdie? Well we have to run down to the creek now. Good boy.”
Onan nodded. “Good birdie.”
“Come on! Then salty crackers.”
Snapper sent Onan running down slope towards the far distant creek. Behind her, Beau hammered his heels into his riding budgerigar, but the tired, irritable creature hunkered down and refused to budge. Unexpectedly it changed its mind though, shooting forward at a furious pace, Beau holding on like grim death as the bird ran wildly off on Onan’s tail. They raced down the gravel scree, past a stand of grass trees that flung rocks towards them in irritation, and dropped back into scrub and weeds. Heads down, tired and panting, the two birds ran across the hard packed dirt. They swerved and flitted past mounds of strawberry termites, then plunged into the thick tree line beside the hidden creek. They pushed past some rather alarming knobby fat plants, pierced a dense band of bushes, and found themselves beneath tall trees that smelled oddly of eucalyptus and passionfruit.
The creek bed was wide, deep, and had a considerable run of slow-moving water – brown furze on the bottom, and clear water on the top. The banks had been carved down through red soil and rock. Downstream, they grew even taller, towering three metres above the water. Onan ran along the bank upstream, finally finding a place shallow enough to admit a wagon. He plunged down the sharp bank, sending red soil casc
ading around them. Snapper leapt out of the saddle, legs cramped and backside stiff as wood – but drove ever onward. The shark took her mattock and attacked the rim of the bank, hacking soil down to make a pathway for the wagons. Behind her, Beau rode his bird into the water to test the depth, finding it only thirty or forty centimetres deep. His bird began to dip its beak, and Snapper looked back to shout a warning.
“No – don’t let your bird drink! It’ll cramp! They have to cool down first.” She hacked a last few chunks of riverbank away. “There we go. That should do it.”
They rode up the opposite bank then headed off into the plains beyond for five hundred metres – then backtracked as swiftly as they could. The two riders clambered back up the levelled bank and out through the trees, facing east and blinking into the brilliant rising sun.
Beau winced, shading his eyes.
“What if they don’t see us?”
“They’ll see us.” The shark drew her sabre and used the broad blade to reflect the sun to signal the wagons. “Throckmorton knows his job.”
The wagons were coming, kicking up a great deal of dust. The heavy dray beasts lumbered along at a clumsy canter, jouncing the wagons along behind them. There was a dreadful bounce and shatter of trade goods – clashing metal and glass.
Snapper rode forward away from the trees and waved her jacket, and it seemed that Throckmorton caught sight of her. The hard-working plant was not the swiftest flier in the skies – even with all six wings hammering he was only slightly faster than the wagons. But the exhausted plant led the way, and Snapper raced forward to curve about and ride beside the lead wagon. Tammin – his scaly skin covered in dust – was urging his dray beasts onwards, prodding the hefty rodents with a pole. Snapper yelled up at him, making sure he understood to head into the water and turn downstream.
“That way! Go go go go go!”
Snapper then rode the length of the wagon train, weaving them on towards the creek. The rearguard riders were coming in fast, led by the elegant green human, Kenda. The men rode a collection of budgerigars and beetle-horses, and were all smothered in dust. Kenda spurred forward to meet Snapper, and looked coldly back along their route.
“Ten k’s behind us, and closing. We’ll have to abandon the wagons.”
“Not yet! Move ‘em on down into the watercourse – keep ’em going fast as they can.” The shark swung her mount around. “You guys have breech loaders? OK – keep with the rear wagons.”
There was a traffic snarl at the creek banks, with wagons having to halt and carefully negotiate the slope and turn. Wings spread to slow her jump, the pink mantis leapt from atop a wagon and came running over to Snapper. Throckmorton and Beau followed at her tail. Lugging her decidedly home-made looking rifle over, Kitterpokkie waved to Snapper.
“Did you leave a false trail on the other side of the water?”
“Yeah – five hundred metres!”
“Excellent.” The mantis watched the dust blow away downstream. “Have we a contingency plan? What if they come after the wagons?”
Snapper pointed down to the great, steep creek banks downstream.
“They’ll have to come straight down between the banks. So we turn the last wagon as a block. We lay enough firepower into them, we might be able to hold them.”
“Ah! Excellent. Channel and control!” Kitt patted her weird rifle. “And I have just the thing! An energy weapon for when things get a little hairy.”
“Energy weapon?”
“Plasma blaster. That’s a recycled ancient plasma reaction chamber, and full capacitors.” The bug patted her wooden backpack. “The wonders of science!”
“Does it work?”
“Absolutely! Most impressive. And virtually no collateral damage at all!” The mantis led the way down to the creek bed. “Right! Let’s man the rear wagon!”
Beau lifted one questioning finger.
“Wait. ‘Virtually no collateral damage’…?”
“Yeah, she’s a crazy.” Snapper urged the caravan guards down into the creek bed. “Down! We want the dust to settle before those creatures cross the ridge line.” The shark motioned everyone to quiet. “Finger talk from now on!”
With water fountaining up around them, the riders plunged along after the wagons, catching up with the rearmost as it forged downstream. The wagons lurched and rocked wildly. Throckmorton floated above, towed behind the last wagon on a length of hairy string. Kitt sat nearby, signing to him in finger talk. The plant nodded several heads then drifted up into the tree tops, peering back along the eastern plains. The mantis climbed over to wave at Snapper, then made clear motions with her fingers.
“Throckmorton will keep watch.”
The airborne plant clearly had trouble negotiating winds: he was keeping to the lee of the treetops and trying to look inconspicuous.
Snapper kept Beau beside her and covered the wagon tracks in the stream as best she could. They rode on down through a great, deep channel that smelled of damp earth and mud. The splash of bird feet, dray beasts and wagon wheels echoed from the creek walls as they grew higher and higher. The creek had become a narrow gorge threading down beneath the level of the plains. The wagons stuck against great round rocks and had to be turned forward by the passengers. A collection of armed men gathered at the back of the caravan, all nervously watching for signs of Screamers.
They travelled one kilometre, then another – slow, agonising progress through a tunnel roofed by ragged trees. Wings whirring, Throckmorton made his unwieldy way down from above. He kept to the branches, but motioned carefully with his tentacles.
“A hundred Screamers. Many shapes. Stopped at crossing point.”
Different shapes? That did not bode well. Snapper signalled the wagons to halt, waving for silence. The entire caravan stood in the bubbling waters, listening for the slightest hint of sound.
Atop a wagon, the pink mantis signalled to Throckmorton.
“Are they crossing over the river?”
“No.”
Snapper’s skin suddenly tingled. She felt the same, strange, unfathomable keening that had accompanied the Screamer’s attack against the hapless ferals. She turned, motioning Kenda and the wagon guards to fall back.
“They’re heading this way! OK – we have to defend the gorge!”
“Wait!” Kitterpokkie came clambering across the top of the second wagon from the rear. “Are we utterly married to these wagons?”
Tammin looked aghast at his load of cotton cloth.
“That’s two thousand chips worth of dyed cotton!”
“A tad hard to cash it in post mortem!” The mantis was already in action. “Right! Plan B! Get the acid!”
Beau blinked, bewildered. “There’s a plan B?”
“Well it was sort of my personal plan A, but I relegated it to the back burner just in case things went well.” Kitterpokkie already had six other passengers conscripted into a chain, passing her the acid jugs. “Get the other wagons moving! Far as you can!”
Snapper winced – then half felt something still scraping at her senses. “We’re making a bomb?”
“Oh – we’re making a five ton bomb!” The mantis was already pouring acid all over the cotton. “Nitrocellulose. Keep out of the fumes!”
“Oh crap.” Snapper climbed straight up from Onan and onto the wagon. “Beau! Ride a few dozen metres upstream and keep guard. Kenda?” The human had gone, but another rider was near. “You there! Stay part way between us and Beau. Anything eats Beau, you have to come back and warn us!”
Beau – quite set upon being heroic - suddenly reigned in his bird. “Wait – eat me?”
“Just get down there” Snapper was far stronger than the mantis, emptying three jugs of acid for each one managed by Kitterpokkie. “Go! Go!”
Shark and mantis worked side by side, with Kitterpokkie turning the cotton fluff with a pole. The fumes were utterly lethal, stinging at Snapper’s eyes. Acid dripped through to the wood of the wagon beneath, steaming on the boar
ds. The shark coughed, trying to protect her face.
“Doesn’t it have to dry?”
“Not really! You just wash it and dry the stuff to make it stable.” Kitterpokkie turned the cotton and soaked it through. “There we are! The cotton core’s changing. We’re getting excess acid crystallising.”
“Is that good?”
“Well, it means it’s going to be unstable.”
The shark coughed. “Unstable like what? Nitro-glycerine?”
“Oh no no no no no!” The mantis gave an easy wave. “Far less stable than nitro-glycerine.”
Snapper froze. “Unstable how?”
“Ooh, well, hypersensitive to shock, change of temperature, strong light… Could detonate under its own weight…”
“Oh sweet Godfish!” The shark emptied out the last acid jug and scrabbled clear. “So do we need a fuse?”
“Not when we have a plasma rifle.” Kitterpokkie surveyed the mass of seething cotton, then leapt from the wagon. “It will go off. But we need ten minutes for it all to settle.”
“Ten.” Snapper rinsed her hands in the creek, then unshipped her carbine and checked the cylinder. “What’s minimum safety distance?”
“Ah, well ideally we need to be around a corner and about three hundred metres away.”
“Three hundred. Gotcha!”
“Or possibly five hundred.”
“Oh great…” The shark turned and yelled back towards the passengers and guards. “Rifles! We need to hold the line for ten minutes!”
The rearmost wagon had been turned to block as much of the creek bed as possible, and the dray beasts driven away. A dozen men of all manner of species, armed with a mix of breech loaders and muskets, came splashing up to the scene. They took cover about the wagon – all save Snapper, who mounted Onan and rode behind the line. Twenty metres behind them, the acid wagon dripped and seethed, its contents converting into a bomb of truly epic proportions – nothing like it had been seen since the GeneStorm wars. Snapper flicked a glance at the thing and saw a white crust slowly discolouring the wagon wood.
“Nobody smoke!”
