by Andrew Post
“Why didn’t you ever yell for help or something? So many people were looking for you. You know Nigel Wigglesby, from the Kobbal Mines? I had to tell him you fell, and now he thinks you’re dead. Makes me an awful liar.”
Perhaps, when it was all said and done, he could tell Nigel the truth and then go to Clyde for a conscience sponging. He hoped the pasty-faced dolt was doing all right.
Greenspire folded his hands at the top of his walking stick. “I suppose if Nigel Wigglesby fell into where the sewer maintenance shaft and the mines connected, I’d probably think he was dead too, being just a man. A man with two bum legs, at that. I most certainly would’ve died if I hadn’t been found by this fine group of people. Chik.”
Flam looked over the tribe, moving around in circles on the wendal stone deposit. They were all muttering and making that buzzing sound on occasion, bent and chasing one another in a never-ending circle. In the middle, a Blatta was on its side, groaning and limply kicking at the air with three legs on its higher side.
“They’re people? Human people?” Flam asked, watching their strange dizzying dance that picked up speed and slowed at intervals he couldn’t decipher.
“Aye, that they are but not just that. Before I could understand them, they kept taking me to their wall of stories to explain.”
“What good are pictures if they can’t see?”
“You don’t need to be able to see to understand a picture,” Greenspire explained. “The paint they use has these granulations in it, a powder they make from the ashes following a funeral pyre for one of their own. Their family members become the stories.”
“We saw some of those,” Flam said. “I didn’t think to touch them.” He wondered if it would clarify the stories. He doubted it. He recalled what they’d been able to understand. “The man and the Blatta, making peace.”
“Not just that,” Greenspire said, “and I know which one you’re referring to. That first drawing is how all their stories begin. The discovery of Geyser, back before there was the platter or homes upon it or banks and stores and all that rubbish. If you were to read some of the others”—he gestured into the darkness—“you’d learn that the pilgrims went inside between bursts of steam and traveled in here. They changed the future forever when they met their partners in symbiosis, what you know as the Blatta. Other tales, more detailed, tell an even earlier story than that. There were two tribes: one that went into the geyser and one that feared to and eventually went to other lands. And then there’s yet another story, going back even further about how they got here in the first place, landing on Gleese when it was just Mouflons and Cynoscions and Blatta populating it.”
“Wait a minute. What?”
Greenspire chortled. “Oh, you must forgive me. If you remember, Flam, I get kind of excitable about stories of yore.”
“I remember,” Flam said fondly. “But just one thing at a time, and take it slow, okay? I’m not as smart as you. Never was, never will be. You got to give it to me in bite-size chunks.”
“All right. So man landed on Gleese, arriving here by way of a great chase, and struck themselves of all they knew.”
“What were they chasing?”
“I’ll get to that. Man arrived on Gleese. All language was gone from them. The means by which they got here—rocket, aircraft, space-faring arc, whatever you’d prefer to call it—they didn’t have the foggiest on how to operate the thing, and it went to rust. They were stranded but fine with it. Soon, conflict split them into two tribes. One tribe wanted to go into the geyser and the second wanted to stay outside, harness it, use it as a power source. And so”—Greenspire swept a hand toward the dancing group of bug riders—“here you have the Lulomba, the group that went inside the geyser.”
“And the other group,” Flam muttered to himself, piecing it together, “ended up building the platter, the palace, all that up there? Right?”
“That’s correct.”
“But let’s go back for a minute. What were they chasing back before?”
Greenspire smiled. “The answer to that is in plain sight!”
“The deposit. They were chasing the deposit? With a starship?”
“Back when it was a meteorite, yes. Apparently where men were originally, they got word or a message from on high that this thing was hurtling through space. They knew it was worth chasing and went after it, pursuing it until it landed hard enough to end its rudderless travel. And they caught up to it, too, just a bit too enthusiastically”—he laughed big—“and knocked themselves silly in the process.” He grew solemn. “Of course, the Lulomba have come a long way since. Better off now than they were before or that other group, if you ask me.”
“That’s what these people call themselves? Lulomba?”
“It is. From what I can understand, it means something like keepers of equilibrium. And since that equilibrium has been unsettled, well—you come at an exciting time. The Lulomba are planning to do just as their namesake implies and begin the reset of that equilibrium. If you’re lucky, you’ll be put upon the walls with their other leaders. It’ll be—”
“Hold the phone. How exactly are they planning to perform this little reset?”
Greenspire stared, fingers intertwined atop the well-worn horn of his cane. He looked very old, the furless rims circling both rheumy eyes pressed deep with wrinkles. It was then that Flam realized that just because someone was old didn’t necessarily make them wise.
“How else do you think an entire populous of misguided people adjust for equilibrium?”
“Uncle . . .”
Greenspire cut his attention away suddenly, gazing absently in the direction of the tribe encircling the one listing, moaning Blatta. “You see them dancing over there? The female in the middle is pregnant, and she’ll be the first of her kind to give live birth. Normally they come from eggs, like this.” He indicated a maggot. “They saw the change coming into the old girl a few months ago, but unfortunately that offspring was stillborn. Still, it was a remarkable sign of things to come. She has not produced eggs, like the others, by the week. Something is in there, something new. A Blatta born like the babies of man. As soon as her placenta hits the wendal stone, that’s when they will set off. An omen.”
“But there are good people in Geyser, too, you know. They’re just trying to live their lives.”
“The walls have been quiet. We know a lot of them have left. We understand that in every encampment of killers and thieves, there are the innocent wives and children with not a fiber of hate in their hearts. But we know from the sound of the boot heels above that not a one of them making that noise is innocent. They wear the armor, carry the guns, shoot that unholy brain-ache light upon us.”
“Okay,” Flam said, with outstretched hands, “settle down, Uncle. It’s good you’ve broken bread with the locals and you’ve decided to take an interest in something bigger than yourself, but I have a friend on his way up there as we speak, and he’s the heir to the throne.”
“They dare call themselves kings. Bah!”
“Listen to me, Uncle. This guy is good. Whatever happens from this point on will be different, I swear to you. He’s on his way to make Geyser a better place.”
“And what is this prince’s name?”
“Clyde.”
“King Clyde?” Greenspire choked. “That is a treacherous lie if I ever heard one! Who’s ever heard of a king named Clyde?”
“It’s his name. He can’t help it. What matters is that he’s going to kill Gorett, do the whole soul Commencement thing, and turn Geyser around. I’m sure if you wanted to have some kind of negotiations about leaving the deposits alone, he’d listen. He’s a good bloke like that, always willing to listen to anyone.”
Even if it means the speaker has to trip over his own feet for a week, Flam thought but decided to omit that detail.
Greenspire continued as if he hadn’t heard his nephew at all. “We’ve blocked the floodway of the geyser, cut off their water. They’ll have to d
rink the stuff they pour down here for a while. We’re letting it build beneath the honeycomb, and when we’re ready, we will seat ourselves upon the cork and break the seal—pouring down all over the city for our great invasion.”
“You can’t kill them—not after a couple of days from now. You’ll be killing good people then. Just show me the way, and I’ll catch up to my friends and ask Clyde to come. You guys can have your powwow and discuss what’ll happen after he—”
“I worked in the sewers thirty years before I fell in here. Thirty years, Tiddle. And there was a patch of rock that was weak. I sent in a repair request ten whole times to my supervisor. One day I walked across that patch, confident they would’ve taken care of it, and I fell through. How long do you think they looked for me? A week? A month? One day. I heard them with their ropes and their mechanical sparrows looking for me for one measly day. They went back up, patched the hole I had made, and that was it. I lived up there, in that city, Tiddle.
“These folks around me right now may be crude and may not wear clothes, but they know how to live right.”
He hushed himself, for the Blatta in the middle of the chanting circle was beginning to screech and growl with agony. “It comes. The new generation comes.” He stood. “We launch the attack tonight!”
All the Lulomba stood as well and began their unintelligible chatter.
His uncle walked across the planks of refuse wood to the top of the deposit, where everyone else was.
“Shouldn’t be surprised,” Flam said to himself. “I suddenly remember you weren’t a very good listener even back then.”
The way station was where Nigel Wigglesby said it would be, but it wasn’t as Clyde pictured it. Instead of a warm and inviting place, they came upon a dark, shuttered, two-story shack. Inside was a stove for metalworking that clearly hadn’t seen a flicker of flame in years. The bare-bones living quarters included slumping cots, a dining table missing a leg and propped up using an old pick handle, some scattered trash. At the back corner, easily missed among the trash and other dusk-choked tools, were a couple of sad souls who hadn’t made it out: skeletons clad in suits that matched the travelers’, except theirs were torn from collar to crotch, everything edible to the Blatta gone.
They decided to take a break here, since they had heard a few scuttles and screeches in the passages ahead. It must’ve been nearing nightfall once again, and the insects were waking up to scout the tunnels for nourishment.
“Hopefully they’ve taken this dump off their list of places to check for food,” Nevele said while barring the front doors. She collapsed into a chair by the front windows.
Between wooden slats nailed over the windows from the inside, precious little could be seen besides bleary reflections. Still, she remained, wordlessly volunteering for first watch.
Rohm hopped out of the breast pocket of Clyde’s jumpsuit and navigated the corners of the way station, looking for anything that could be of use.
Clyde lifted the guardsmen helmet off his head and ruffled his hair, dragging his fingernails across his scalp. He liked the comfort in knowing his noggin was being protected by the helmet, but the itchiness he could do without.
Nevele knotted her hands and stretched her arms overhead. “We’ll park it here for a while,” she said through a yawn. “Take a load off for a minute.” She knocked on the armrest of her ramshackle chair. “I was dreaming about a good sit-down like a dog dreams of buried bones.”
Clyde, meanwhile, couldn’t take his eyes off the two people in the corner, huddled together, reduced to nothing but bones. They looked like they were screaming, with their jaws hanging open like that. He hoped they were openmouthed because they had no muscle any longer to keep the bottom and top rows of teeth together, that their lives were taken painlessly, maybe even in their sleep: a dream that slipped into another, just of a more permanent variety.
He noted that Nevele and Rohm seemed not at all bothered by the fact that two skeletons occupied the way station with them. He tried again to paint a happy picture for them. He imagined them as friends, just two fellows seated side by side sharing a reflective moment of silent, humble company. They died laughing, not screaming. Maybe.
It didn’t work. It was a disheartening sight either way. He turned his back to them, unable to help thinking of his own mortality. “What if we don’t succeed?”
Nevele dropped her boots to the dusty hardwood with a clunk. “What sort of talk is that?”
He hadn’t even realized he’d said it aloud. He cleared his throat and took a seat on the floor. “I mean, what if we don’t make it to the surface? What if Gorett knows where we’re coming from and has his men ready? I saw the Patrol shortly before we found you at the hospital. They had enormous guns and gray light lanterns mounted to their autos. They were covered head to toe in armor that looked impenetrable, even from cannon fire . . .” His voice cracked.
“Don’t be a pessimist. I thought our talk earlier put the pluck back into your spirits; now here you are again thinking we’re sure to fail.”
“But we’ll be outnumbered when we reach the surface.”
“I know you’ve been literally living under a rock, Clyde. And I know you spent a lot of time in seclusion with all your comforts provided by Mr. Wilkshire, but out here in the thick of things, you have to carry on no matter the odds.”
He let that sink in, but it couldn’t melt the iceberg of defeatism. “And what keeps you going?”
“Hope,” she said brightly, leaning back in her chair so it was on only two legs. “Hope is all you need. Think of yourself as a strong individual, rely on your own wits and strengths, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you lose hope and lose faith in yourself, then there’s nothing anyone can do for you. Focus on the light on the horizon. If there isn’t one, you’ve got to put one there.” She patted his cheek, her hand warm.
And then he found himself with the power of the suns to take on that iceberg. Easy as that. He smiled.
A rumble shook the station, glass sconces shattering onto the floor.
Nevele threw out a hand to grab onto Clyde to keep her chair from overturning.
Beyond the walls of the way station, Blatta screeched.
Clyde stood.
Nevele scrambled to get her boots on.
Rohm scampered into the room, climbed Clyde’s entire body, and burrowed into a pocket. Clyde buttoned the pocket and noticed Nevele at the window.
Beyond her, a few shadows flitted by, darker than those around them. The scuttle of wings. The tramp of countless, bony feet. The Blatta didn’t seem to be in their predatory mode, as they had been in the cavern when Nigel removed the digger’s blade, bolting in straightforward trajectories; these were sporadic and mindless movements. Panic.
“They’re unsettled,” he said.
“Naturally. Their world is breaking down around them.”
“They deserve to be scared, doing what they did to all the miners like this.” He gestured at the two in the corner without actually looking at them. “They’re monsters.”
Still at the window, Nevele shook her head. “True, they’re monsters. But they have hope—at least some version of it.” She turned around. “They believe in something—survival of the fittest—and they’re seeing to it that they remain at the top of the food chain here. You have to admire them in a way, doing what they do.”
“Admire them? Are you serious?”
“Sure. I mean, I don’t exactly want to run out there and make friends with them, but you have to give them at least a shred of credit. They’re protecting something, taking a stand in the way that comes natural to them.”
“I suppose. They do seem kind of like proud creatures. Even if they are just dim killing machines.”
Nevele smirked. “They probably think the same thing about us.”
A loud slam directly above their heads made both of them reflexively duck.
Nevele drew a pistol.
Clyde did the same, with some di
fficulty. Wrestling Commencement out of the too-small holster was difficult if he didn’t pull at exactly the right angle.
They listened as six-legged footfalls went from one side of the roof to the other. One of the Blatta issued a trumpeting sound, and from deep within the caves came a response of blats and cries. This exchange continued, with each reply closer.
“It seems your honorable friends heard us gossiping about them.”
“No one likes a smart arse.”
Apparently the Blatta atop the way station was accompanied by a second, then a third. Then a slew all at once, slamming simultaneously. Each clanging arrival was accompanied by a scream from the others, as if in welcome. Once in a pack of what Clyde calculated to be at least ten or more, they scuttled around the exterior of the building, occasionally darting past the windows and giving every knick and knothole in the exterior a cursory prodding. They each took a turn with the front doors, feeling around under the door itself as well as poking an antenna through the keyhole before moving on. They each did this but never two at the same time.
Clyde nearly jumped when he felt something tickle his chest. He looked down to see Rohm attempting to work deeper into his breast pocket, even though he had already hit the bottom. Clyde gently patted the lump and whispered, “Stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine.” He tried his best to make it sound true.
Upon the last word leaving his lips, one of the Blatta dropped into the fireplace with a sooty whoosh.
Nevele spun and opened fire, putting bullet after bullet into the insect. She’d rendered it dead before it had taken a single step into the room.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, panting. “They’ll call for more, and we have only so many bullets.”
“What are you suggesting? Go out there and run . . . in the dark?”
She lowered her gun with obvious reluctance and faced him. “Better than here.”
“No,” Clyde said. “We’ll stay here. We have the walls, and the door is locked. They won’t be able to get in except through the chimney.” He holstered Commencement. “Here. Help me move this table.”
