David: Savakerrva, Book 1

by L. Brown

  Less thrilled, Garth realized it wasn’t just a tube he held, but a pressurized hose. And though it quivered a bit, trembled with pressure now building up, the rest of the hoses simply gushed, filled every vat with a gravy-like muck. Yet worse was the smell, the swill had a reek between wet dog and bad eggs. But though the funk dizzied, the crowd below just left him benumbed.

  Lions taking zebra, hyenas ripping a kill — Garth had seen other feral feeds, but few matched this frenzy at the vats. They fed like barbarians, scooped muck hand-to-splattered-mouth, and yet, their clothes implied a culture more civilized, a herd less hooved and more well-heeled. True, every coat looked frayed, but most bore embroidery, looked finely cut. As for color, dark overcoats draped the men, but women preferred brighter wraps, and often with the odd pop of hat. But impractical headgear clashed with the Machine, had no use on an ocean of ice; and that, thought Garth, might also apply to them: not just displaced, the throng below looked more thrown out, refugees from a Renaissance fled.

  Garth lurched, dropped three inches and stopped. Aghast at the travel, at the hose he held becoming unstuck, he wondered if he should ride it down or crawl back up. The former lead to the crowd, but the latter might lead to a crash, so seeking other options, he turned left and right, then twisted around. Then he just hung there, just looked at the face staring back.

  Clean?

  Not splattered with swill, her appearance stood out. Yet so did her confusion, the cock of her head, maybe she’d never seen a boy in mid-air. But if that explained her stare, Garth’s was more about hair, her curlish mix of auburn and brown. Eye-catching, yet not as much as her hat, some half-shell fedora secured by nothing visible, perhaps only luck.

  Then with a clank, a friction brake popped, and as the stuck hose unreeled, Garth held on till he hit with a splash.

  An arrival unforeseen, the boy in the vat interrupted the feed, at least for some. A few lips snarled, some tongues licked, but down on his knees and rump-deep in swill, Garth knew words were useless, his only chance was keep quiet and run. But after years of enforcement, the rules of Miss Kang, the reflex was natural, he couldn’t hold back.

  “Sorry,” Garth croaked.

  A woman slapped his face. Other blows fell, unintelligible curses rained, and though he tried to leave, other hands helped, punched him hard and threw him clear.

  Garth crashed between vats, slammed the ice between cracked leather boots shod with saw-tooth cleats. And then with a shout, some hearty hale or farewell, someone kicked him square in the back.

  “Hey!” Garth yelled, but that only enraged, drove more kicks. Retreating from the beating, Garth dove for sanctuary, a few square feet under a vat.

  Safe? For the moment, but as he tried to regroup, as he rubbed the new bruises and wondered if the cleats all around would stomp out his life, he knew he hid not under a vat, but a trough, for though they looked human, he’d fallen into a herd.

  The klaxon horn blared once, then twice, then horribly, inexorably, every trough rose. Exposed again, Garth curled up and waited for more, but despite all expectation, no further kick came.

  He opened his eyes. Saying nothing, smiling even less, the hundreds and thousands just licked their lips and sucked their teeth while slogging back to the tool racks.

  “Yohsh?” a weak voice asked.

  It was him, Garth noticed, the Man in Mottled Fur. Bloodied by the stampede, the trampling underfoot, he weaved through the herd while chasing the rising troughs.

  “Yohsh!” he implored, swiping for a hose. But he swiped too slow, every hose and trough now reeled out of reach. Refusing to give up, he spun and turned and surveyed the ice until spying the smear, the residue and spots splashed by Garth.

  The Mottled Fur Man shouted, then bolted for Garth and dove for the spots. Sliding on all fours, he then cleated to a stop and scraped up the swill.

  Too wired to be shocked, Garth just wondered if it was finally safe to run. Then he ducked from gunfire, the screech of shells chipping the swill-stained ice, and finally, crazily, came the clatter of a conveyance.

  Something approached, and chancing a peek, he saw a ceiling-hung rack, a platform with a greatcoated man who cradled his club-sleeved arm.

  The Flame Shooter, it’s him. But with no place to hide and too scared to run, Garth just watched him come. Though as for Mottled, as the platform swooped in, he shouted while scraping the goo, just babbled away in a tongue unknown. But fluent or not, Garth heard fear, quick syllables of fright.

  The platform rattled to a stop. Too scared to look, too panicked to not, Garth lifted his gaze to the platform, to the silhouette with the club-sleeved arm who wore — no goggles? Confused a moment, wondering if he’d simply taken them off, Garth watched as the silhouette leaned forward into the light.

  Nearly shouting Logaht, Garth held his tongue, for though the being above bore a distinct resemblance — same soiled face wrap, same fourteen-fingered hands — he had two eyes, not one, and neither eye looked stolen from an owl. Instead, the being’s right eye looked artificial, glowed oddly green, while the left reminded of a predator, an orb pried from a shark.

  “Ka ha?” asked Mottled. Chewing now, crunching tainted ice, he addressed the shark-eyed being; who, Garth suspected, had to be a G’mach. “Shool ka yohsh?”

  Shark ignored Mottled, did nothing but stare.

  But so did Garth, he couldn’t take his eyes off the club-like device around Shark’s right arm. Stained with illustrations, with acts vulgar and violent, the drawings reminded of a lousy comic, insults to art and man.

  More clatter rose behind. A second platform approaching, it ferried another G’mach, but this one looked leaner, less massive than Shark. The new arrival appeared younger as well, but when he stopped beside Shark, Garth saw only his face, the dark goggles hiding his eyes.

  Skin suddenly hot, Garth looked up at the Shooter of Flame. Had the near miss on the roof been too quick, does he know my face?

  “Toh chahkt,” growled Shark, and lifting his arm, he pointed a blistered finger at the Mottled Fur Man. Apparently, a command, Shooter now aimed his club-sleeved arm. But unlike Shark’s, Shooter’s sleeve looked blank, had no sketch or sign of ink. And while three S-like insignia embellished Shark’s collar, Shooter’s had none.

  “Shool!” Mottled begged, now holding up a shard of frozen swill. “Shool yohsh, shoo—”

  A gun barrel popped from Shooter’s sleeve, an airy hiss escaped, and without further gesture or word, green flame whooshed into the mottled fur coat.

  Recoiling first from Shooter’s blaze, then from Mottled’s scream, Garth beheld his first murder, the sound and thrash and stench. He couldn’t watch, had to twist away and press his ears, but though he tried to deny it, the cold-blooded burning so close, he not only understood it was real, he knew he was next. Bound by horror and unable to move, Garth just sat there, just waited his turn until Mottled went still.

  Which is how Garth heard it, the odd noise from Shark. Possibly laughter, but if so, he laughed with a catch, with a throat either thick with phlegm or unused to mirth.

  “Fehr,” Shark mumbled, now clucking approval and clapping Shooter’s back. Then nodding to Garth, Shark growled that same, “Toh chahkt.”

  Shooter swung his sleeve toward Garth.

  Ready to flee, but too scared to run, Garth looked up at the goggle-eyed G’mach with the hot-hissing flame. Firefly, Garth’s first, useless thought, the Shooter of Flame reminded of a bug-eyed villain from a comic once read. But this Firefly was real, and if Garth didn’t find a way to communicate, explain how he just dropped in, he would join the melted, mottled mass just beside. Yet what could he say, what words would he use, the G’mach had their language and he had his; then again, Garth wondered, had they read Tolkien, too?

  “I’m from Detroit!” yelled Garth.

  Firefly’s head tilted.

  Shark’s predacious eye blinked.

  Enough said, nothing else left, Garth just waited for the incinera
ting end. And wondered at the tapping, a sound like a passing cane.

  But as the source of the noise hobbled on by, it wasn’t a cane Garth saw, but a tool, a pole with a T-shaped head. A bearded man held it, someone bent with years in a long, tattered coat, and as he stumbled along, he mumbled as well, conversed with none but himself. And though Garth had other concerns, something about the mumbler generated a pang of pity; and reminded, vaguely, of a wizard, some alien Merlin searching for his Camelot lost. Stranger still, the old man passed without incident, Shark and Firefly simply ignored.

  “Toh chahkt!” repeated Shark, nodding back to Garth.

  Maybe it was the interruption, the pause restoring his mind, but Garth now recalled the knives, the X-blades under his coat. Could he pull them in time, lash a hot arc?

  “P’rahz!” barked an angry voice.

  His execution interrupted once more, Garth watched someone else hurry up, a tall man with spectacles and one missing lens. A look, despite his long-handled axe, that seemed better suited to bureaucracy, the ways of flounder and delay, some Tap Water Manager in the City of Flint.

  “Bohg, P’rahz!” ordered the Manager, and grabbing old Merlin, he shoved him toward the herd, the masses retrieving their tools. And once the mumbler was off, the Manager returned with such a clench and tic that Garth wondered how this would end, death by fire or managerial axe.

  “Bohg!” shouted the Manager. “Bohgga leek!” he snarled at Garth, and while groveling before Shark and Firefly, he swatted Garth with the flat of his axe and pushed him after the old man.

  “Bhog!” the Manager repeated, and swinging his axe and hurling abuse — “Bohgga leek, bhogga bhogaa vah!” — he chased Garth at a run toward the smoke and steam of the trench.

  But as Garth approached the great steamy ditch, his smooth-sole boots grabbed no grip. Skidding and slipping, he slid into the trench and vanished into the swirl.

  Garth stopped just short of broiling heat and blue-glowing skin. Crusted with slag, ugly patches of black, the creation forged by five infernos and the crescent’s crushing squeeze now quivered and seethed a few feet ahead. More than just inexplicable, the enigma before him resurrected words, Dahkaa’s tale of the serpent he yearned to destroy. But its name, what was it called?

  “J’kel!” the Manager shouted from up in the fog. “J’kel, bhogga J’kel!”

  The word hit with the axe, the Manager’s tool that slid from the steam, then slammed into Garth.

  Chapter 10

  Slag

  Smoke choked and steam burned, clanging tools shredded the nerves, and that was just the welcome, his first minute in the trench. But as more minutes passed, as icy condensate leeched through his clothes and cold soaked feet went numb, Garth’s most dogged agony lived in his hands, in calluses bursting, then callusing again. One hour gone, maybe six or ten — hard to say, because somewhere between the swings of his long-handle axe, Garth got lost.

  Who he was or might possibly be, how he went from his pod to a trough to a steaming ice trench — but mostly, Garth got lost in the J’kel, in the glowing creation just an axe swing away. A broiling conundrum of twitch and writhe, it seemed sometimes a cable, sometimes a snake, a switchback of illusion enticing his mind into thickets of confusion, a dense wood of what and why. But questions were pointless, just hurt his head, and with his quota of pain sufficiently filled, Garth just swung his axe like the rest, the shadows to his right and left who attacked the black scale, the crust scabbing the J’kel.

  Reminding of slag on molten steel, it formed on the J’kel’s blue-glowing skin just after its birth. And the task, by all appearance, the reason he and the rest in the trench swung their long-handled tools was to crack the slag and scrape it away, just scrub the serpent and keep it pure.

  Straightforward enough, but not only did the smashing cacophony and steamy roil make the work wretched, the axe made it worse. More massive than the other tools, the common T-bars he glimpsed through the steam, Garth could barely shoulder the long-handled thing, much less swing with force. And since his boots lacked traction, most impacts missed or glanced off, just left the slag intact. Frustrated by it, by the work and the pain and Dahkaa’s big lie — pleasing, he said, you’ll land where it’s nice — Garth swung all he had and slipped on the ice.

  Garth crashed hard. But hitting so close to the J’kel, he grimaced less from the ice and more from its heat, from the hackling proximity to a creation too unnerving for words. Ghastly, the sense, and though impervious to analysis, if ever a thing had an aura of Armageddon, a foreshadowing of annihilation and bright, burning doom, this was it. He hadn’t felt it before, never perceived such dread from the length of his long-handle axe, but here and now, up close? This serpentine cable simply repelled.

  Garth thrashed back with a shriek. No longer naïve, aware of a terror deep in the glow, he wondered if his fellow slaggers ever felt it, if those shadows in the steam had the same sense. But if they did, it didn’t show, and though Garth had nearly just burned alive, no one paused, no shadow missed its swing.

  Garth stood. He had to, the Machine never stopped. It didn’t move fast, even the aged and lame kept up, but unless he resumed his trudge, the slaggers to his left would soon arrive. And if they did? Recalling his kicking at the troughs, how they’d now just ignored his fall, he wondered what they were: indifferent? Patient? Will they bide their time, then T-bar my skull?

  Maybe, yet the slaggers kept slagging, never gave a glance, so Garth did the same. But as he struggled up his axe, he considered a glimmer, his first hopeful thought.

  Escape.

  The thought stuck, rejuvenated his mind. Garth had to escape, but how? He didn’t know the language of the herd, could neither ask nor understand, but without information, how would he go? Or perhaps the question was where.

  Garth paused a moment, put himself back on the Machine’s frosted roof. Had he seen any hills or mountains, any far hint of land, was he really engulfed by an ocean of ice? By every memory, he most certainly was, nothing interrupted except the Great Wall of Ice and, paralleling its length and where he now toiled, the trench.

  But since the wall extended in front of the Machine, then so did the trench. And didn’t that imply another Machine, some great trench engine leading the way? And if so, if at least two steel monsters prowled out here, then what about supplies and fuel; would the G’mach have a base, some place built on land, could he escape when they arrived?

  The thought intrigued, distracted from the noise and pain and J’kel. Yet if he did escape, what then? For if the end goal was earth, how would he get there; Dahkaa and Logaht, their craft? So he hoped, but if he accepted reality, the awful truth, they’d shot him off in that miserable pod because they knew they wouldn’t make it, Dahkaa and Logaht were dead.

  Garth dropped his axe. Too many questions, too man ifs — and even if he did escape, didn’t Dahkaa say this world would end in just forty moons, that this J’kel would lay it to waste?

  “Stop!” Garth shouted, covering his ears and dropping his axe. “Stop it, take me home!”

  But no one did, every shadow in the steam just continued their toil. Trying to understand, figure them out, Garth wondered if they’d ever shouted the same, if perhaps over time, the Machine had worn them down. But had all surrendered, did any dream of escape or resist the G’mach?

  Garth bent down, picked up his axe. But unlike the rest, he used the tool not to labor, but lean, to rest his bones while surveying the outer surroundings, the world above the trench.

  The Machine’s open gut churned overhead, a cacophonous riot of pendulous rods and ponderous shafts and bursts of dragon-like flame. Boggling, this view from below, but a boggle more still was how it all worked, how at the torturous end of some alimentary trip, an endless J’kel spewed into a trench. Yet given the tremendous mass of it all, perhaps the most bewildering fact was how this Machine actually moved, for — devoid of wheel or track, it simply floated over the ice, a propulsion reminding of Atta R
a. Did they use the same sorcery, had the G’mach mastered the magic of the anti-gravity stride?

  Another pile-driving Thud turned Garth toward the rear of the Machine. Where, just visible through the vaporous swirl, another silo tower blinked to life. And what, Garth puzzled, did those things do? Planted at regular intervals, the towers reminded of pickets, of fence posts along the trench. So was that their function, did the towers protect the J’kel? And if he tried to escape, would those same towers watch him, track him, shoot him down cold?

  Garth slumped on his axe. Escape was impossible, for even if he did outwit the G’mach, their weapon-sleeves and towers and whatever-all else, unless he found land, he’d die in the blow and cold of the ice, no way he could make it alone.

  And if I wasn’t?

  Spurious, the thought, a random foul way out of play. But as it bounced a bit and rattled around, Garth wondered if his chances might increase if he had some help, someone to escape with, perhaps even guide. But as he looked for kindred spirits, for subtle nods or ‘were with you’ tells, he saw only strivers, workers swinging for President’s Club, Slagger of the Month. Granted, he had just arrived, so maybe they didn’t trust him, perhaps thought him a spy. Then again, came the queasy alternative, maybe they just loved their jobs.

  So he widened his search, looked for a posture as slack as his. But regardless of turn, everyone either hammered the slag or hauled it away, and while the slaggers were men, women loaded the carts. And when the slag brimmed high, they wheeled them up ramps, suspended bridges crossing the trench. Strangely, though, as the two-way traffic crossed, Garth noticed no smiles or chat. Was there really no news, were alien women less social than earth’s? Or perhaps, his last thought, the price of a nod was a blast of fire.

  “Bhog!” roared the voice, and before Garth could turn, a kick knocked him flat. Blindsided by gibberish and even more kicks — “Yala bhog, ya lay!” — he retreated from the Manager’s attack.