by J. S. Morin
The force opposing him grew as well.
“You can’t do this! Eahndara has stood for longer than your primitive species has existed. We raised you up from simple animals and gave you the intellect to make tools and develop language. I forbid you to destroy this sacred place!”
“You don’t strike me as the progenitor-race sort. Maybe a long time ago, your species was hot shit in this galaxy, but you’re just a dime-store con artist with some big, magical toys leftover from an age you don’t remember. You’re stuck on this moon, by my reckoning, so I don’t see how you can be responsible for what happened on my world back in prehistoric times.”
“Their legacy is here. Some of them lived on Sabuntu, the jungle moon Eahndara follows. We carry their DNA. We inherit their creations. If you succeed in wrenching us free of orbit around Mehissi, you’ll doom us all. There are innocent neshi living here. Do you want that on your conscience? We’ve lost contact with the rest of our species. We may be all that’s left.”
Mort attempted to ignore the squidgier side of his plan. These “neshi” weren’t any friends of humanity, at least not the modern ones. If Mort owed anything to Devraa’s ancestors, he didn’t extend that courtesy to the being in front of him who enslaved human minds and sicked those followers on Mort’s friends. “Good riddance.” He resumed his arguments, chanting them aloud for Devraa to hear.
The moon began to move. It was the sudden drop of the innards that accompanied a ride on a non-gravity-stabilized lift.
Devraa’s panic was obvious. The neshi impostor god chanted aloud as well. Despite his efforts to form a cogent, compelling argument of his own, Mort listened.
Devraa was not arguing for stability. Mort’s efforts had already borne fruit, and that fruit wasn’t to Devraa’s taste. They were drifting into a larger orbit, one that would only grow more distant if left unchecked. Devraa was arguing fervently for a decrease in Little Brother’s orbit—or Eahndara, as he called it. In an effort to clarify for the universe what he meant, Mort took to using Devraa’s name for the moon as well.
It was a slow struggle, like two equally matched teams playing tug-of-war on the quad at Oxford. Freshmen versus sophomores was an annual tradition, and the freshmen fell for the same trick every year.
Mort stopped pulling.
Feigning fatigue, he hung his head and panted for breath. He hoped his acting was good enough for a non-human to pick up on the cues. Eahndara lurched in the opposite direction, correcting its course toward its original orbit. But Mort didn’t stop exerting his influence—he merely voiced his pleas to the universe silently. Instead, he did what the wily sophomores of Oxford couldn’t do with only a rope to work with. He pushed.
Eahndara lurched again, violently this time. Mort and Devraa both lost their footing, but only Devraa fell to his hands and knees and lost physical contact with the gravity stone. Left alone with all the power of the stone, Mort gave the moon one last push and switched his arguments.
Hey, not to be a sore winner, but this old stone can’t possibly take the strain it’s been under. I’m just not buying it.
With an earthquake rumble, cracks split the massive stone. Standing beneath it, Mort briefly wondered if he’d made a grievous error, but the stone didn’t grind itself to rubble as had the buildings down the street. It merely split, its bulk held up by the pillars at the four points of the local compass.
Devraa crawled toward him, eyes glowing a somber blue. “What have you done?”
Taking up his staff in both hands, Mort strode forward. “I came here for one reason and one reason alone. You’re the one who had to drag orbital mechanics into this.”
Mort felt tingling sensations of heat and wind, of blindness and crushing gravity, of awe and mortal terror. It was like watching a holovid: once you accepted that it was make-believe, it held no power over you. Of course, Mort knew his own magic would be equally ineffective in such close proximity to Devraa. He gave the neshi that much credit. But Mort held a power in his hands that suited a stalemate of magic just fine. It was an old power, its strength grown over centuries and harvested by master craftsmen. It was oak, hewn from a forest in Ancient British Columbia before Earth’s lumbering ban. It was about to get bloody.
Back at Oxford, Mort had failed to make the polo and golf teams. He hadn’t dared try out for lacrosse. Any sport with a stick, bat, or pole was just not his thing. He ended up captaining the Oxford bowling team, an achievement that had done nothing to prepare him for hand to hand combat with alien gods. But though it was thirty years in his past, Mort had also run a bit of track in college, and he was wearing sneakers. Devraa’s spindly feet, revealed when he hiked up his robes in both hands, were wrapped in some sort of sandal.
Mort closed the ground in a dozen yards, catching Devraa from behind and clocking him over the head with his staff. It hit with a dull thud, leaving a dent in the gray flesh. For a moment, Mort felt the twist and pull of the universe struggling to decide what to do. Should the air burst into flames? Should the stone floor crack and split beneath his feet? But indecision ruled the day and left Mort a doughy piñata to bludgeon.
Devraa raised his arms overhead to shield his face from Mort’s blows, but for once, humankind was the brawnier species. Mort rained blow after blow against his foe, each strike meeting a firm yet yielding substance more akin to clay than muscle or bone. Devraa grabbed the staff at one point, but Mort tore it free from his grasp with a growl. The self-styled god was no match for Mort in a physical contest. Soon, all semblance of defense ceased, and Mort continued his pummeling until strange ooze erupted from the wounds he inflicted.
Satisfied that Devraa was dead, he summoned fire to consume the body. There was no harm in playing it safe. With the body ablaze, Mort slumped against one of the supports for the cracked gravity stone, gasping for breath. “Exercise… humph. Who needs it? I’m in… plenty good shape.”
# # #
Mriy and Kubu followed Tanny through the jungle. Despite her dull human senses, Tanny’s knowledge of patrols and terrain were what was needed just then. Her steps faltered as her weak eyes failed to make out shapes in the starlit gloom. Her obliviousness to the scents of predators would have brought them across the path of at least two species capable of hunting human-sized prey if not for Kubu’s intimidating scent. The canine’s lack of sanitary habits kept the stink of stale kills on his breath and muzzle. Any beast worth its place in the evolutionary path knew better than to cross such an indiscriminate eating machine.
As Tanny led them, spear in hand, Mriy watched her movements. The way she stepped down from a jutting stone to lower ground. The way she picked up her feet to avoid low-lying vines. Most of all, Mriy studied Tanny’s use of her spear. At times, it seemed an impediment as she wove through hanging tangle-vines or pushed her way through bushes. Other times she used it as a walking stick or to guide branches aside. The first step in her capture would be to separate her from the weapon.
Tanny paused for breath and pointed. “Just ahead. Over that rise. There’s a gully. Stream flows away from the city. Follow it until you reach familiar territory.”
Mriy had heard the water’s flow for several minutes before Tanny mentioned it. Even without her help, Mriy had been confident that she and Kubu could have managed to find the Odysseus. Getting out of the city and past the sentries was the only hitch she’d foreseen in her Tanny-free version of the plan.
“You are confident you will come under no suspicion?”
Kubu nodded. “I don’t want Mommy to get in trouble for helping us.”
Tanny shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Everyone’s going to point fingers at everyone else. I’ll get an I-told-you-so for underestimating you two. But unconscious at my post, I don’t think I’ll catch any shit. If they ask why I’m alive and A.J. is dead, I’ll just say you two must have a soft spot for me.” She offered a weak smile, devoid of warmth.
Mriy leaned her spear against the nearest tree and spread her arms. “Then this is far
ewell.”
Tanny took a step forward, then hesitated. Her eyes narrowed, and she brought her spear point level with Mriy’s belly as she backed away. “Oh, no you don’t. You almost had me. Tender moment. Mriy. Those two don’t add up. Your feet are set for a jujutsu takedown, not a hug. Don’t forget who taught you that shit.”
“You aren’t thinking clearly. You think you are, but you’re not. You traded one drug that sickened your body for another that sickens your mind.”
“It was actually eleven different drugs and supplements, but I’m thinking just fine now. Thanks. And you’re fucking welcome for the rescue by the way. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind and turn you back in. I can’t believe you’d—gah!”
Tanny dropped her spear and doubled over, falling to the jungle floor and clutching her chest with both hands.
“Mommy!” Kubu was at her side in an instant. Mriy was only seconds behind.
“What happened?”
Wordlessly, Tanny rolled to her hands and knees. She put one foot beneath her and tried to stand, but the leg jittered and gave out. Mriy rolled the limp and panting Tanny onto her back and noticed the droplets of sweat forming all over her body wherever skin was exposed. She put a hand on Tanny’s forehead as she’d seen Esper do in diagnostic situations. But the feel of Tanny’s forehead told her nothing and only got sweat on her fur; Mriy wiped it on her pants.
“Kubu, we’ve got to get her to someone who can help.”
“Back to the city?” Kubu asked.
Tanny managed a weak nod. Her eyes weren’t even open anymore. “Dev-raa.”
Mriy lifted a limp and unresisting Tanny and slung her across Kubu’s back. “No. Real help.”
# # #
So. Mort was in a city. He hadn’t caught the name, but the moon it was on was called Eahndara, and it was orbiting Mehissi—at least for a little while longer. He’d continue calling the city Eden for as much longer as it existed. But that wouldn’t be long since it had taken a turn for the crashy with regards to the planet it orbited. Sundering such a work of art as the enormous gravity stone gave Mort a pang of guilt just looking at it, not just because it was the only conceivable way of preventing the moon’s utter destruction. It was also quite a piece of architectural-grade enchanting. The only time he’d witnessed magical constructions of that scale were the pyramids of Earth and the life gardens on Athos.
There was noticeably less atmosphere inside the city limits. The lifeless gasses of the moon had seeped in as the breached perimeter barrier allowed the neshi-friendly air to leak out. Mort sat on the steps of some public building, breathing the Kilimanjaro air and mustering the energy to hike back out to Samson and the shuttle.
A streak shot overhead, silver and fleeting. A second later, there was a horrendous crash—a dry explosion of stone and metal.
The neshi hadn’t shown any inclination toward technology of any sort. There wasn’t a scrap of metal that he’d seen in his entire tour of the city. Thinking back, that streak did have a somewhat familiar coloration.
“Ah, bugger it all. I told him to wait for me.”
Using his staff to lever himself to his feet, Mort hurried off in the direction of the crash site. It wasn’t hard to find.
Despite having only a general sense of the city’s layout, primarily based on his observations about its geometric regularity, Mort was able to judge where the shuttle had crashed. Based on the angle that it had whizzed overhead and the direction of the sound, he’d estimated it was somewhere in the gigantic plume of dust that had kicked up when it impacted—probably close to the center.
Say one thing for the makers of science-based spacefaring vessels: they built them solid. The buildings and flagstones had taken the worst of the collision. The shuttle appeared to be largely in one piece, even if that piece wasn’t shaped much like the original. A mechanic like Roddy might write it off as a total loss, but that wasn’t Mort’s primary concern. The flappy door at the back was jammed shut, and Mort didn’t even see buttons to try pressing. Taking a wild guess that it was as harmed as it was going to get, he used telekinesis to wrench the ramp open and climbed inside.
There were no lights on within the shuttle. Mort followed the sound of a weak cough to the cockpit.
“Hey,” Samson grunted. He was in obvious pain but alive. His voice was muffled through a clear plastic mask with tubes leading to a metallic tank.
“Hey, yourself,” Mort snapped. “Where’d you get the damn fool idea to come get me? Ever stop to think that the folks responsible for the anti-science on Ithaca might use the same shenanigans over on this moon?”
“Um, no. Not really. I figured the moon was coming apart, and it was either get out with you or without you. It was your lucky day; I decided to be a nice guy and swing by on my way out—see if you survived.”
Mort harrumphed. “Well, let’s see if you survived this cockamamie stunt or if I’m talking to a corpse-in-waiting.” He lit the tip of his staff as a lamp and gave Samson the once over. The safety harness got in his way, so Mort unbuckled it. Samson slumped forward with a teeth-gritted wince, no longer supported by the restraints.
Within a few minutes, Mort had a good survey of the bodily damage. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad.”
“What’s the bad news?”
So, Samson was that sort. Good enough, Mort liked a pessimist. They didn’t grate on the ears like a perky optimist. “The bad news is that you crashed our ride, and nobody but the two of us knows it.”
“And the rest?”
“The good news is that before we disembarked on this crazy mission, I tidied up the enchantment on this little boat’s gravity stone.”
“You can do that?”
Mort snickered. “I’ve been known to dabble in gravity stones now and then. Anyway, thanks to my forethought—which was largely due to skepticism regarding your piloting, truth be told—the damage to your person appears not to be life-threatening. Oh, you’ve got broken ribs and you’re more contusion than not, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t suffered whiplash, a concussion, and a host of other nasty bumps and whatnot but nothing gory. If you’ve got any pills that fix that sort of thing squirreled away around here, now’s the time.”
Samson chuckled, grimacing in pain at the same time. “They don’t make pills for broken bones.”
“Well, how the hell would I know? They’ve got pills for damn near everything else. Damned unfortunate, too. Little bits of chemistry like that would probably still work.”
“Maybe… maybe you got some magic that can help?”
“Sorry. Wrong wizard. There aren’t many things Esper does that I can’t manage backward, under water, and asleep, but I’ve got no talent for palliative sorcery. Best I can offer is slumber.”
“I’ll take it.”
Mort patted him gently on the shoulder—one of the few spots relatively free from trauma. “All right. You get some rest while I go out and explore the city. Lucky for you, I have a little experience knocking down the obelisks that keep science at bay.”
# # #
They arrived without fanfare. In fact, the flight control team who picked the Mobius up on scanners was shocked they were there at all. Astral navigation was handled by computers for a reason: the human brain had a hard time wrapping itself around the distances involved. On top of that, the non-linear nature of astral distance relative to realspace added a layer of complexity. But most experienced laymen had a ballpark idea how long it took to get from here to there. Calculate a course from Alpha Centauri to Phabian once or twice and you file that information away. And most of the calculations anyone around Ithaca had done wouldn’t have made it seem possible for the Mobius to be back from the EADZ yet.
Carl was first down the cargo ramp, fuming. He’d spent the last portion of the trip working himself into a lather over Don Rucker dropping by his secret hideout and acting like he owned the place. He wasn’t prepared for that same Don Rucker to be waiting for him in the ha
ngar, grinning like an idiot.
“Carl, my boy,” Don called out, spreading his arms. “Get over here.”
Warily, Carl approached. This wasn’t some holovid mafia boss who’d give him the Kiss of Death. Don wasn’t even Italian by heritage; his family traced its roots to Germany. Carl decided to roll the dice and matched Don’s posture and expression as he approached. “Don! It’s been forever. Sorry I couldn’t have been here when you arrived. But you know how it is, growing a fledgling operation from the ground up. Guy’s gotta get his hands dirty.” Of course, Don knew no such thing. He’d worked as a grunt for his grandfather and father before inheriting control of the Rucker Syndicate, but the fledgling operation thing was xenological to him.
They hugged—one of those showy, back-clapping bear hugs that was mostly for the benefit of anyone watching. And there were plenty of onlookers. Don had a sizable entourage, most of them strangers to Carl, and Carl’s own crew and underlings were gathered around the fringes of the hangar. Of Mort, there was no sign.
“Hey, might be that I was in a sore mood when we last spoke. All’s forgiven on my part. I hope you feel the same.”
Carl held a skeptical eyebrow carefully in check. “Sure, Don. Water under the bridge. I can get a little testy after my ship’s been shot full of holes. Nothing personal, and I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
Don wrapped a meaty arm around Carl’s shoulders and dragged him jovially through the hangar and its hangers on. A few former naval officers and current middlemen of Carl’s pestered him with questions, which he answered, brushed aside, or ignored as he saw fit. Don kept up a mild stream of smalltalk the whole way but didn’t seem bothered by underlings trying to do their job as he spoke.
Craning his neck to look back at the Mobius, Carl watched the rest of the crew hanging back at the cargo ramp and interacting with the few personnel who had legitimate work to do on the ship. He wasn’t paying attention when Don guided him to the hangar exit, and the voice that called out to him nearly made Carl swallow his tongue.
