Authors: Gillian Andrews
The material was resistant, but gradually more and more cracks were criss-crossing its curved surface; at last they heard a satisfying snap of the Dessite-made material, and the best part of a square metre separated from the rest, and gaped open. The two girls hung back, panting.
Arcan edged out from the rent sides, slowly allowing his bulk to stream through the opening and re-amass on the other side.
He shimmered faintly as he turned towards them.
“Thank you.” His voice was much stronger now. “Thank you very much. But I will still not be able to leave the installation, you know. The whole island is permeated with the carbon nanographite. It won’t change anything.”
Diva nodded. “But you won’t die as a trapped being; you may be able to inflict some damage before you go! Take the explosives, and position them inside you. This is the detonator; you can use it yourself if it becomes necessary.”
Arcan flashed suddenly, right through his body, and they blinked at the fierce light. While their eyes were recovering Arcan implemented Diva’s suggestion. “You are right, Diva! It is good to get some control of my future – I can move the explosives around inside me. They will never find them now.” His whole body shimmered with outrage. “They were going to dissect me into small sections, and then use bits of me as spaceships! They thought to conquer the entire Ammonite Galaxy that way.” The whole mass of the orthogel in front of them began to vibrate with anger. “Let’s see just what damage we can do! I never thought I would say this, but I have no choice; I am forced to go to war.”
Diva grinned ferociously and dragged her Coriolan dagger out of its sheath. “I am with you, Arcan. War!”
Grace stared from one to the other. Her face was pale, but determined. She was still holding her catana the wrong way round. Her eyes registered this, and she slowly turned it between both hands, so that the blade was facing out. She thought back to that one war cry she had heard, and her eyes filled with hot tears.
She lifted the catana up in front of her. “To war!”
SIX, BENNEL AND Tallen raced towards the source of the explosion; they had drawn their swords and were more than ready for action. Each of them knew that the time to creep around unseen had passed, that the battle was going to be here and now.
Tallen could feel euphoria taking him over; it was a heady sensation. Although he could have wished to die taking Tartalus with him, he knew that his sister was very close to him at that moment. He could feel her energy pulling him on, her breath on his cheeks as he ran with the others towards the source of the explosion. He lifted the sword and began to shout the words he most needed out loud.
“ … I will not pause, I will be light.
I will not waver, I will be the earth …”
Bennel heard him, and half turned to give a faint smile. He himself was thinking of his wife and children. It seemed unlikely that he would see them again, now. He thought back to the few days he had spent with them at his brother’s farm, on Mount Palestron, and his heart fell. He hated to leave Lannie like that, with her allergy making her wheeze and cough until she resembled an old hag doubled over with spacebone disease. How long would she survive in those conditions, without him? And what would become of his children? He knew that his brother would do the best that he could, but the meritocratic laws did not allow their subjects more than the bare essentials of life. The farmer would have to take food from his own children’s mouths to feed those of his brother. He would do it, but it would make life hard for everyone.
Slowly, Bennel shook his head to clear it. None of this mattered. What mattered, here and now, was that the orthogel entity, the wonderful being who could transport him clear across the galaxy, needed help. He was not going to be the one to let him down; that much was sure. Bennel charged on, his eyes determined, his sword arm high, his heart leaden.
With one thump, Six’s heart had leapt out of his chest. He had just heard the faint echo of a battle cry; and he recognized the voice it belonged to, and the words of the cry. Ledin was fighting. A cold shiver ran all the way down his spine. Not only were Ledin and Grace in danger; Diva might need him.
He was galvanized into motion, adrenalin flooded his body, his brain. He was no longer thinking at all. His whole body had transformed into a weapon, and it was eager to taste action. His fear for his friends’ safety disappeared, blotted out by an expectation which had to be met. He careered on along the corridors, flinging himself in front of Tallen and Bennel.
The first Dessite they came across was moving almost as fast as they were themselves, heading for the source of the explosion. Even though it had been alerted mentally to the presence of at least one intruder, it wobbled to an incredulous stop as it detected a tiny flash of movement nearby. The ultraviolet vision prevented it from getting a good look at the intruders, but it now knew that the flash of shapes was real. It connected hurriedly with its superior.
“Foreign shapes! Here!” Its membranes stood straight out from its body in shock, and it radiated a sharp fear which transformed all of its listeners into automatic participants. The surprise in its mind left it broadcasting inadvertently to the whole of the Dessite empire, and so 595 billion souls realized at the same time that their floating island had been breached.
Those listening could not help but react. Even the travelers —some of them thousands and thousands of light years away in distant constellations— added their few strands of neurons to the mass of brain power aimed at finding the culprits for the scare. Slowly, a wall of Dessite minds began to take shape, building gradually in size from a few nearby individuals, to all Dessia, then to the small spaceships, far out in space.
The prognosticator, who had been resting in the elite chamber of the tanks of the twelve, struggled to disassociate himself from the mindmerge, overwhelmed by sensory perception. He was needed physically here on the island; the wall could help, but couldn’t protect his workforce from direct attack.
He directed sharp flares of anger towards those who dared to approach him mentally, and transmitted blazing orders to all those in the facility to avoid being caught up in the wall. Dessites could function while in a merge, but their actions were very slow with their attention focused elsewhere. No, thought the prognosticator, they had to leave the mental part of the attack to those not actually present on the Island of the Forthgoing.
Gradually, the prognosticator overcame the natural temptation to sink into the protective wall, and was able to sharpen his senses into the space around him. He sped over to the three nearest workers, and used his membranes to snap them out of the reverie of mental merge. Their outer fronds rippled in worry and fear; the Dessites had not faced physical danger in millennia.
The prognosticator had realized at once that this was an attempt to rescue the orthogel entity. He wished that the Ammonites had agreed to give more support than simply the location of the orthogel entity. Their help would have been invaluable now.
“Leave the explosion site!” he screamed mentally at all those on the island. “It is the alien they are after. Go there! Go to the alien!”
As the wall began to feel the desperation of the prognosticator, he let go of his hold on those who were still actually inside the facility and began to concentrate his mental weight on the intruders, allowing his own mind to act as a spearhead for the mindwall’s true power, directing the whole massive structure to one very well defined position.
Six, one of the first to feel the full force of the billions of Dessite minds, gave a shout, and nearly fell over. He had the strangest sensation of running on cloud; the corridor had almost disappeared, and his feet seemed to be moving automatically, as if in some sort of dream. Meanwhile, his mind was reeling; he was aware of the enormous wall looming over him. Even though it was only a sensation and he was unable to see anything physical, its effects were stronger than he could have imagined.
His cry of alarm must have nearly reached Kwaide itself. It certainly reached the two trimorph twins, up in the New Independence behind the Dessite moon. They began to spin furiously, and contacted the canths to bring in what small residual mental push they had left from defending Arcan. Then, together, they aimed their protective blockade to where the tiny minds of the transients were under such oppressive attack.
Instantly the heaviness against Six’s mind eased, allowing him to concentrate on running. He was still aware of the wall, and he felt strangely isolated from his legs and arms, but he was back in his body, could control his own thoughts again.
ALL THIS HAPPENED in the time it took Bennel, Tallen and Six to cross to where Ledin had set the explosive device. In the meantime, Ledin had been fighting for his survival. He was overwhelmed by towering Dessites; although they were by no means soldiers, their sheer mass put him at a huge disadvantage.
Any doubt he might have had about their ability to defend themselves vanished quickly. They were made of soft tissue, certainly, but that soft tissue had ways of defence of its own – the first cut of his sword into one of the Dessite bodies had shown him that.
As soon as it had felt the cold steel penetrate its trunk the Dessite had stopped dead in its tracks. All of the membranes on its body had stood out at right angles to its skin, making it more voluminous even than before. As if that were not enough, a fine spray began to emanate from small sacs set under each membrane, and a choking cloud of liquid mist seeped towards him.
Ledin leapt back hastily. He didn’t know what that spray would do to his mask pack and bodywrap, and he didn’t care to find out; he was quite sure that it was nothing good. This is what he had noticed when he had become visible to them. The cut he had inflicted didn’t seem to be causing much damage either; the edge of his sword was damp with an almost transparent blood, and there was a deep gash in the side of his opponent, but none of that had stopped it from moving, and moving fast. It was coming towards him, and the front membranes seemed longer than before; they were stretched out, the tips of the fronds undulating, as if to catch hold of him. The bite of the sword had barely slowed it down.
Ledin’s eyes widened. Even with their sight disability, it was going to be hard to get past these ungainly sea creatures and back to the girls and Arcan. But he knew he had to try.
He waited until the massive being was nearly upon him, and then took the opportunity to duck out into the corridor. There, he met three more of the huge aliens, and was forced to employ his sword again as he tried to duck through them.
It was useless. The Dessites had the advantage of a wide girth, and even when his sword penetrated deep inside them, it seemed to hit no vital organs. Instead, the whole corridor around him was filling with the spray, as each of the three creatures let loose its defensive mechanism. Of course, they were water dwellers; this mechanism was probably much more effective in water.
Ledin blinked. If nothing else, the spray was making it difficult to see. Apart from that, his head was feeling heavy, and his mind sluggish. He stumbled. He could feel the wall of Dessite minds gradually looming up in front of him. His consciousness looked up. It went on, and on, and on, and on. He couldn’t even see the top of it; it was so high. He felt the back of his neck crick as he stared upwards. He sighed. It was too much. He was aware of rippling fronds curving around his arms and his legs. The membranes seemed to be provided with some sort of suction, because he was transfixed, unable to move. He struggled feebly, but the membranes inexorably began to ripple away from each other, pulling at his legs, stretching his whole body until he cried out in agony, tearing the muscles and ligaments apart.
Hanna was beckoning him to Pictoria. It was a beautiful sunny morning on the red ridges, and the purple gas giant was shining down. There was the odd avifauna gliding off the buttes in the distance, and the first rays of the sun had silenced the wind. He smiled feebly at his sister, who was holding out her hand and urging him with her eyes to take it.
He looked around, his mind answering
.
“Wait! GRACE! I can’t leave her. I … I have to get back.”
Hanna wavered in front of him, and Ledin suddenly saw that the thing he was looking at was not Hanna at all. He was distantly aware of the mental touch of the trimorphs, trying to reassure him, and then that his sister had turned back into the wall. His mind lurched, his eyes horrified, his brain confused, his body screaming with pain as it was stretched, as if on a rack.
Let me overcome this indignity, he thought. Let me meet my enemy face to face. Let me know how to hurt him, know how to vanquish him. This … this mental shadow world was impossible to overcome. It crept insidiously inside your mind and painted false pictures on your brain, draining all the will to live out of you.
As the Dessite exerted more pressure, rending his limbs apart, his mind darted back into the surreal. He twitched, and his real body managed to plunge the tip of the sword below the Dessite’s eyes, more by luck than by intent.
This time the creature twisted away from him, dropping him instantly onto the floor, where he sprang to his feet. It writhed, and then moved quickly away, its membranes curled up around its body, making it look much, much thinner. It might even be mortally wounded, he thought.
Ledin smiled. He was learning where to attack, but it had come at a cost. He tried to turn to the other Dessites, to aim at the neck area, where they appeared to be most vulnerable, but his sword arm was hanging limply by his side and seemed to be ignoring the instructions his brain was sending it. He staggered back, unable to do anything about his predicament.
SIX WAS THE first to spot Ledin. He flung himself towards the doubled-over figure and thrust hard at the Dessite who seemed to be spraying the prostrate Kwaidian with some kind of liquid.
His momentum took the creature temporarily off balance, and although it was so much larger than him, it fell to the ground. This was clearly a problem for it, because it twitched feebly, and its membranes rippled frantically to try to get enough traction to allow it to stand. It couldn’t. It was a creature built to live in a water habitat, not in dry air. Apparently, it wasn’t able to deploy the spray either, because the membranes were partially crushed underneath it, and this seemed to inhibit them all from standing out at right angles from its body.
Ledin was making signs at them, after trying to wipe his mask pack clear of droplets. His right arm was beginning to get some feeling back. It wasn’t actually broken, then.