On Whetsday

by Mark Sumner

  “Which way?” Sirah called.

  “No idea,” said Denny.

  “Right,” said Yulia. “Right....now. Turn right now!”

  Denny shoved forward. Sirah pulled back. The ferry pivoted in a moment. When they straightened, Denny was surprised to see that they were actually hurtling straight down the center of a rain-slick street. The ferry was moving fast, much faster than he had ever seen one move when he was out in the plex. Buildings whipped by on both left and right. Another flash of lightning showed a single cithian traveling along the wet sidewalk. “Which way now?”

  “This way,” said Yulia. “Just keep going.”

  Denny wanted to turn his head to see how close the other ferry was to them, but he didn't dare look away from the road. In the next flash of lightning, he saw something ahead of them. Something that loomed pale and huge across the entire road.

  “Stop,” said Yulia.

  Sirah responded right away. Denny a moment later. It was enough of a difference to launch the ferry hard to the right. It bounded up a slope, smashed through a tall fence, rolled up onto one side, came down again, and spun to a halt against a wall of pale metal.

  “We're here,” said Yulia.

  Denny slapped at the plate beside him and the top of the ferry opened. Lightning still flickered above them and the ground vibrated with thunder, but the rain had slowed to a few widely spaced drops. Denny climbed weakly out of the ferry. Looking back, he saw nothing in the street behind them but bits of broken stone and a metal panel knocked loose from the side of the ferry.

  Kettle and Sirah came out after him. Both of them seemed to be okay. From the back seat, Yulia and Talla climbed out quickly, but Cousin Haw took several seconds to appear. Even in the poor light, Denny could see that the big man was shaking.

  “Did we get away from the other ferry?” asked Denny.

  “Ten minutes ago,” said Auntie Talla. “I don't think they thought about driving on things that weren't streets.”

  “How far are we from the Cataclysm?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Yulia. She put a hand on the wall of metal near the nose of the ferry. “This is it.”

  38

  Denny stared in surprise. He'd seen the Cataclysm from across the city all his life, but he'd never appreciated how enormous it really was. The side of the thing was so large that from close up it was hard to tell it was even curved. Overhead it rose into the darkness, the top actually lost in clouds. The sheer size made Denny feel like coming here had been a mistake. The idea that they might actually move something so enormous was ridiculous.

  “Which way do we go?” asked Sirah.

  Yulia was still clutching the maton. She waved it to Denny's right. “This way.”

  The ground around the gigantic ship turned out to be actual ground. Soaked through by the heavy rain, it was spongy and slick underfoot. Denny slipped and staggered forward, resting one hand on the side of the ship for support.

  “Wait,” Talla's voice said from behind him.

  Denny turned to see that Talla was holding something. It took him a moment to realize the something was Yulia. She was limp in Talla's arms, her head tilted forward and her curls dripping from the rain. Denny knelt down beside her, his knee sinking into the soggy ground. “Yulia. You have to put it down now.”

  She shook her head weakly. “Can't. We need her.”

  “We need you,” said Talla.

  Yulia raised herself slowly. “I'm okay. Let's just keep moving.”

  They started forward again. There was a small rise in the ground, but getting over it seemed to Denny like climbing a mountain. Sirah was right behind him. Kettle had moved back to help Talla with Yulia. Haw was far back, his feet sinking deep into the mud at every step.

  Denny slipped, fell and slid down the slope on the other side. Another crack of lightning, and in the rumble that followed he made out a flat space ahead covered in plates of what seemed to be stone. There was a gap in the wall of the ship on the left. Some kind of opening. And there was something in the center of the stone plates. He took another step, then froze. It was a cithian. A cithian and... a human? The light flickered again. The way it glinted off the figures ahead let Denny know what he was actually seeing.

  He came forward, his muddy shoes leaving streaks on the wet stones. The two shapes ahead of him came clearer at every step. It was a human. A human made of metal. A statue of a human, like the ones that his father had made, only this statue wasn't just as big as a person, it was bigger. The human in the statue was a giant, two heads taller than any person Denny had ever seen. He was wearing a suit with funny creases at elbow and knee. His face was set in an expression that Denny could not quite read. Happy. No, not happy. Something more than that.

  The metal man held out one gloved hand to the figure in front of him. That figure was a cithian, taller even than the man, with the deep notches and groves along its metal shell that showed it was a leader among leaders. The cithian held out a mid-limb to the man. The man's fingers and the cithian's spiky manipulators were just touching.

  Denny realized after a moment that Sirah had joined him. She trailed her hand across the metal back of the man. “I wonder who he was,” she said.

  Talla and Kettle struggled down the hill, holding Yulia between them.

  “Earth,” Kettle said softly.

  Denny circled the two figures. There was something set into the stones beside them. It was a large yellowish metal sign, with words raised up in letters the size of Denny's hand. Despite the size of the words, the darkness made it hard to make out what it said. He had to wait till the next flicker from above before the first part was clear.

  HERE HUMANS FROM EARTH... read the top of the sign. Another quick bolt of lightning. “...FIRST SET FOOT...”

  Then lights were shining in Denny's face. Not the quick stab of lightning, but light that was steady and bright and coming from all sides. He raised his face to see three dasiks standing around the stone area with bright lights in one hand and stunstiks in the other. From the shadows Overcontroller Hiser appeared.

  “Stop where you are.” The cithian raised a forelimb, showing a blunt gun with a wide black barrel. “Your escape is over.”

  39

  Tollsday

  On Tollsday, Denny surrendered. The clouds moved aside long enough to reveal a faint red glow in the sky that marked the start of Tollsday. Around them, the plex would be waking from its Dimsday sleep. The market would be opening. The streets would soon fill with cithians on their way to work.

  In the increased light, Denny could see the tall fence that separated the base of the human starship from the buildings around it. It was tall enough that even a cithian wouldn't have been able to see over the top. Denny realized that it might not be just the humans who didn't understand the truth. How many generations of cithians had grown up thinking they had rescued the poor, helpless humans? How many of them knew what had really happened?

  In the little stone square, everyone seemed to be frozen. Sirah leaned back against the tall statue of a human. Kettle stood protectively next to Yulia, one arm around her back. The silver orb was still in Yulia's hand, but her head was down, her face hidden. Auntie Talla stood in the center of the space. Her long cloak was wet and streaked with mud at the bottom, but her arms were folded over her chest. Her chin high. Behind them all the door into the ship was a circle of darkness–a mystery they would never reach.

  From behind the bulk of the Overcontroller, a new figure appeared. Denny thought he was too tired to be surprised by anything, but he jumped to see that it was the old chug, the same chug who he had seen at the spaceport. The chug who had put the memory cube into his box.

  The chug moved around to stand beside the Overcontroller. “I said I wanted to see a human thing,” he said in his whispery voice, “and now I have.” A dozen eyes, brown, blue, and orange, pivoted toward Denny. “I gave the least of you the tiniest chance, I dropped a bit of debris into the box of a beggar, and now her
e you are.”

  The chug glided toward Denny, its hidden limbs clicking softly. “That's a human thing. Curiosity. Restlessness. Jump, jump, jump. That is what you do.”

  It paused near the edge of the sign. Denny looked down, reading the golden words at the chug’s feet. “We came in peace,” he said.

  “Peace.” It was dangerous to read expression into the voices of other races, but there was little doubt the chug viewed the word as poison. “For half a million years, my people lived in the same way. In fullness and contentment. Then humans came, and in a single generation we wanted more. Progress. Change. Hope.” He said the last three words with the same venom he had used for the word “Peace.”

  “So you killed us,” said Talla.

  The chug raised a quartet of eyes to look her way. “Not all of you, though that was not my choice.” The eyes pointing toward Denny and Talla settled back into the mass, and a new cluster of blue and orange directed their focus toward the Overcontroller. “Your people are the ones who insisted on keeping these humans alive for so long. Will you at last acknowledge that they are too dangerous to allow even the slightest trace to survive?”

  Hiser Grismalamacata Omicradiscrad, Overcontroller Human Assistance Authority, seemed to have a hard time answering this question. His jaws made a series of clicks, and his clangers thumped softly against his shell, once, then a second time. “I have...delayed this moment for many years,” he said. He raised the big gun in his forelimb and pointed it toward Denny. “But this–”

  Whatever he was going to say next, he didn't get the chance to finish. A red-black shape ran into the square so quickly that it was only after the Overcontroller was on the ground that Denny realized it was the slender, sharp form of Omi. The young cithian caught the heavy gun with one mid-limb and sent it flipping away. “Run, Denny,” he said. “Quick.”

  Omi threw out a quick forelimb blow that grazed the chug, and a second blow just missed striking the chug in the middle of its curtain of eyes. The chug ran away with surprising speed.

  The two dasiks standing behind Omi seemed frozen at first, but then they rushed in, stunstiks swinging. Denny turned to shout something to the others. He was turned just the right way to see another of the dasiks suddenly snap its long head back at the end of its long neck, and crumple to the muddy ground. Cousin Haw stepped out from behind the fallen dasik, his big fists raised.

  “Get in the ship,” shouted Talla. “Everyone.”

  Kettle dragged Yulia through the dark opening. Sirah hesitated at the entrance. “Come on!” she called to Denny.

  Haw stepped over the fallen dasik and struggled down the last of the slope into the square. His boots were so caked with mud that it looked as if each leg was carrying a good portion of the hill. With a quick glance toward the place where Omi was struggling with the dasiks, Haw started for the opening.

  Omi was lashing out with the sharp edges of his heavy forelimbs, but the armored skin of the dasiks turned back his blows. One of them reached in quickly, striking Omi with a stunstik. Both Omi’s legs on that side collapsed. The cithian tipped over, and fell to the side, but he kept fighting, striking out with both his forelimbs and his hindlimbs.

  Denny dashed forward and picked up the stunstik dropped by the dasik Cousin Haw had hit. Then he ran back across the square and swung the stik toward the nearest of the remaining dasiks. The tall dasik saw him coming, and started to turn, but Denny's blow caught it solidly in the side. The stunstik emitted a buzzing noise and the dasik's yellow eyes went wide. It started to fall. Denny hit it again, just to be sure.

  Omi had the next dasik pinned between two of his limbs. Denny leaped toward it, putting one foot on the downed Overcontroller's shell in passing, and managed to clip the dasik on one high shoulder. The blow wasn't enough to knock the dasik down, but its arm dangled limply and the stik fell from its hand. It looked at them for a moment, opened its long mouth, and made a very high, squeaky sound. Then it turned and dashed from the courtyard in the same direction the chug had taken, long feet slapping against stone.

  Denny crouched down beside Omi. “Are you okay?”

  The young cithian turned its eyepads toward him. “Denny. I didn't know. I didn't.”

  “It's all right,” said Denny. “I know you didn’t.” He took Omi by the smooth section of a forelimb and tried to help him to his feet, but the cithian's right side was still numbed by the effect of the stunstik.

  Voices sounded from the distance. Denny raised his head and saw that more ferries were arriving. The chug was coming back toward the square, and behind him was a crowd of figures that included cithians, dasiks, and even a pair of skynx. Closer to hand, Overcontroller Hiser was beginning to wave his limbs as he recovered from the shock Omi had delivered.

  Denny spotted the Overcontroller's gun at the side of the yard. He ran to it. The weapon was large enough and heavy enough that it took both hands to raise it. He wasn't quite sure how it worked, but it seemed simple enough. He turned to face the approaching crowd and sighted down the thick barrel.

  “Denny! No!” Omi tried to scramble to his feet, but fell again. “No.”

  “But...”

  Omi waved a forelimb at the sign on the ground. “You came in peace. Go the same way.”

  Denny let the gun fall to the stones. “Come with us.”

  “No,” said Omi.

  From somewhere back down the path came a series of sharp cracking sounds. Denny heard something go singing through the air. More of the sounds followed. There was a loud ping as something bounced from the metal statue of the man.

  With one last look at Omi, Denny turned and ran into the ship.

  40

  Just inside the door, everyone was huddled together in the center of a short hallway. There was another door not two steps ahead. It was firmly closed.

  Talla looked at him. “We can't get this door to open, or the outside door to close.”

  “Yulia–” he started, then he noticed that Yulia was at the center of the group. She was lying on her back on the floor eyes closed.

  Kettle looked up at him. “We can't get it out of her hand. It's like it’s stuck.”

  Denny joined them. He could hear shouts from outside the ship. Another of those cracking noises sounded, and this time the ping of impact came from the ceiling just over his head. He lifted Yulia's hand. As Kettle had said, the silver maton seemed glued to her fingers. No matter how he touched it, Yulia's fingers wouldn't release their grip. The skin of her fingers looked bruised. Almost burnt. The edge of the little purple memory was jutting between her fingers. It was hot to the touch.

  More shots sounded. They banged off the walls, the ceiling, the inner door. Cousin Haw gave a grunt and spun up against the wall. Denny saw a line of blood across the metal floor. Talla put herself in front of Sirah, wrapping herself around the younger girl, though Sirah struggled against it.

  Denny stood and ran to the inner door. There was a panel to touch, but touching it did nothing. There were no other controls Denny could see. Only a small depression beside the panel. A small, square depression.

  He ran back toward Yulia. Something punched him in the left arm, and lights seemed to flash inside his head. Denny tumbled to the floor beside Yulia. He reached for the maton, and turned it over until he found the point where the purple memory cube was visible between Yulia's fingers. Denny grabbed it, pulled it, and popped it free.

  Denny got back to his feet. There was more blood on the floor now. It seemed like a lot. The snaps and bangs and pings came from everywhere. His shoe slipped in the blood as he was getting back to the door. The distance to the door seemed to have become almost infinitely long.

  Not exactly leaving in peace, he thought. He raised the little cube. A shot banged off the wall beside him. The cube slotted into space. No figure appeared.

  He turned toward the open door to the outside. The light of Tollsday seemed as red and bloody as the hallway. “Athena. Close the door. Athena!”

  Th
e door began to close.

  41

  Pairday

  On Pairday, Denny left Jukal Plex. They would have liked to wait longer. They would have liked to wait until Yulia was awake, until Denny and Haw were healed. Until they understood more about the massive ship. But they couldn't.

  “If the other races defeated all the humans,” said Talla. “You can bet they can handle a single old ship. We need to get away while we can.”

  Even so, it took time. Athena, who could appear to all of them now, was able to control the ship, but it took time to start the long cold engines. Time to wake systems that had been still for generations. Time to reconfigure the matons at the heart of the ship to accept the programming that Athena had for them.

  There was an amazing amount of space inside the ship. It was far bigger inside than Denny's compartment building. There were rooms for sleeping and rooms for growing food and rooms for studying the stars and planets. It was a whole new plex.

  Sirah sewed up Denny's arm and wrapped it in a tight bandage. “There,” she said. “It looked bad, but you should be all right in a few days.”