Penult (Book Four of The Liminality)

  “Come on people!” said Olivier, clapping. “No standing around. We got shit to do. Need to figure out who’s coming, who’s staying.

  “Whoever stays behind will need to go inland from here,” said Ubaldo. “This camp is no longer safe.”

  “We have some wounded for sure who will need to stay back,” said Olivier. “Bugs and folks.”

  “This one will not be able to make the crossing,” said Viktor, examining a dragonfly with a crumpled hind wing. “It will need a splint and a patch. But she can make it to the bogs, I think.”

  I saw one dragonfly go down in the water,” said Karla. “I think it might have drown.”

  “And we’re short at least one robber fly,” said Olivier. “Alright, let’s patch up whatever, whoever we can and make our assessment. I’d like to clear out of here within the hour.”

  ***

  We buried Kitt and the other fallen behind the dunes, just on the edge of the forest. Some of the volunteers decorated their grave with a scattering of scallop shells and sand dollars. No one said a thing. There was nothing that needed to be said. We all knew Kitt was brave and spunky and we would all miss her.

  A party of the more able-bodied carried Yaqob to an outcrop of ancient coral in the middle of the scrub forest. They stashed him under an overhang where he would be protected somewhat from the elements, not that it seemed to matter with Old Ones. They weathered well even out in the open, gathering moss and lichens without ill effect.

  After that, folks just spontaneously sorted themselves out to accomplish the various tasks that needed to get done. Karla helped tend to the injured volunteers with Ubaldo and a Frelsian who had some skill at flesh weaving. The Frelsian—a short, bald Algerian named Ydris—had a knack for sealing wounds and mending broken bones through unbroken skin.

  I joined a crew that tended to the bugs, most of whom had suffered some sort of injury. Tigger, again refused to come down out of the trees when I called, but from the looks of things he seemed fairly unscathed.

  Lalibela, on the other hand, seemed badly injured, her cuticle cracked in several places and leaking profusely. Viktor and Urszula labored to patch her with resins reinforced with sheets of thin but tough membrane that Viktor carried for such purposes. Her wings were intact, other than a few rips and holes in the clear parts.

  Urszula shinnied up a fig tree to snag her a couple aphids. She knocked several down off their perches and they fell like coconuts. While she slid back down the smooth bark, I cornered an aphid against a tree trunk. I could see organs pulsing behind its translucent green cuticles.

  Urszula snatched it up and tucked it under her arm like a football with legs. She handed it to Lalibela who snatched it up greedily in her forelegs. Oliver strode over with Ubaldo, hovering as usual in his orbit.

  “So you’re the last scout standing.”

  “So it would seem,” she said, wrinkling her brow with puzzlement.

  “We’ve got a few more questions for you. How stiff are their coastal defenses? I mean, what are we facing?”

  “Defenses?”

  “Yeah. I mean, what can we expect? Do they have air defenses. Falcons on patrol?”

  “They have nothing,” said Urszula. “No real defense. It is as if they have never been attacked, and they think they never will be. They are the attackers. Their focus is all on this place. We saw many Cherubim marching to the shore, with only a few Hashmallim attending to them. They were going to the boats. We did not dare challenge them, but they did not seem very alert. They wore no armor, carried no weapons. Their limbs and skin are not yet modified. They were not expecting any threats.”

  “They give us no respect whatsoever,” said Ubaldo, grinning. “They think we are sheep. They cannot imagine us coming to them.”

  “We faced no opposition. Maybe it was a mistake to send us,” said Urszula. “Now they will be alerted.”

  “No,” said Olivier. “It’s good that we know what we’re getting into.”

  “One problem. The core is very weak over there,” said Urszula. “We had trouble making spell craft.”

  “Now that could be a problem,” said Olivier. “Maybe that explains why they fight the way they do. All those conventional weapons. Bows and arrows and slings. I don’t think they do it just to be Luddites.”

  “So what about the cracker columns?” I said. “Will they even work over there?”

  Olivier looked at me like I was an idiot. “Those have nothing to do with spellcraft,” he said. “They’re like the wings. Pure technology.”

  “Really?”

  “Wasn’t it Asimov who said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?”

  “I said the core is weak, not absent,” said Urszula. “Someone like James can use the core even when it is faint. Even … in life.”

  “We’ll be counting on you, then,” said Olivier. “The rest of us might be firing blanks once we get there.”

  My stomach churned, but it was just nerves—no conjuring of will.

  “Any chance you want to give that other column another shot? Try to get it working?”

  I just looked at Olivier.

  “Are you kidding me? Honestly … I’ve got nothing. Not a clue.”

  Olivier frowned. “Alright. But we’ll bring it along anyhow. We already got good use out of that one decoy. We’re not going to need three beetles though. Maybe we send mine back to the bog with some of the wounded.”

  “Yours? So then what will you fly?” said Urszula.

  “I was thinking, time to upgrade my ride. I have my eye on Yaqob’s scorpion fly,” he said, winking.

  “We need to leave,” said Ubaldo, staring out across the waves. “Before they have a chance to respond.”

  “Yeah. We’re almost ready,” said Olivier. “Viktor’s fixing to lead a bunch of the more banged up back to the bogs. Soon as we see them off we can ship out.”

  “How far is it to cross?” said Ubaldo.

  “Not far,” said Urszula. “The water is narrow like a river. It is not really ocean. How you say? Strait?”

  “How long did it take you?”

  Urszula shrugged. “A few hours. We see land most of the way. Only in the middle do we see nothing. There were … some boats.”

  “Boats?” said Ubaldo, perking up.

  “Oar boats,” said Urszula. “Rowed by a single Hashmal. Like the condors. The Cherubim they stack like wood … in the hold.”

  “Maybe … we can attack some?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Olivier. “We don’t need any diversions. This mission is all about giving the Pennies a taste of their own medicine, delivering a cracker column to their shores.”

  “Though I worry about the beetles crossing,” said Urszula. “Taking over a boat would give them a place to land and rest.”

  “Our beetles did fine on the way over,” said Olivier. “Those bugs might be clumsy fliers, but they have staying power, unlike the mantids. If we get fed and watered well, they should have no problem getting across.”

  “Perhaps,” said Urszula. She and Ubaldo shared a glance.

  Olivier climbed up a sand pile and counted heads. “Eight,” he said. “Looks like we’re down to eight able bodies and bugs. Alright people, gather around. This is how we do it.”

  Chapter 59: The Boat

  We hung out on the beach, nervously eying the far point where the Pennies lurked, until Viktor, Ydris and the worst of our wounded had lifted off and were streaming over the forest, heading for refuge in the bog lands. Riders doubled up on the saddles of the fittest bugs, while the injured insects flew home alone.

  I managed to sneak up on Tigger while he sunned himself on the sand, and clambered onto the saddle before he could get away. He first tried to buck me, but quickly settled down, resigned to have me as a rider, this time at least.

  “I don’t think he likes me,” I said to Karla, beside me astride her comparatively well-behaved robber fly.

  “He’s j
ust a baby,” said Urszula, on the other side of me. “Even Lalibela, I had to chase when she was new.”

  Ubaldo stood in the saddle of his hornet, watching Viktor and his contingent recede across the landscape.

  “If the Pennies are watching, hopefully they’ll think it’s all of us retreating,” said Olivier, as his scorpion fly nosed around in a heap of rotting kelp.

  “Shall we go?” said Ubaldo.

  Oliver gave a nod.

  “We stay low, skirt the northern arc of the bay till we’re over the open sea.”

  Ubaldo zipped away on his hornet. It dangled its tarsi, skimming the tops of the waves. The two beetles went next, each hoisting a cracker column. The rest of us followed, keeping as low as we could as we sought our assigned positions in the escort formation.

  Tigger kept drifting higher, but when none of the other bugs would join him, he shifted back down to their level. Good thing, because, I doubt any of my kicks and stomps were having any influence on him.

  Tigger also insisted on flying fly next to Lalibela, the only other dragonfly left in the formation. There wasn’t much I could do to deny him, even though Olivier had intended for us to fly on the other flank with Karla. Urszula just looked straight ahead and smiled like Mona Lisa. I can’t imagine Karla or Olivier were too thrilled.

  Ubaldo’s wasp, by far the strongest flier among us, ranged far and wide, scouting our flanks and the path ahead. Our overall speed was limited to the ponderous pace of the beetles. Their thoraces vibrated like Harleys as they glided over the glistening water. They were flying a little too low for my comfort. I worried what might happen if they dunked one of the columns. Those things were so porous, they would probably suck up seawater like sponges.

  Finally, we passed the rocky headlands that formed the northern buttress of the bay and moved out over open water. The sea here was clear and quite shallow. The sun easily penetrated to the sandy bottom, reflecting back aqua and turquoise hues with the occasional cobalt slash of a deeper rift or canyon.

  We passed over a pod of huge, long-necked, large finned creatures. They looked too long and sleek to be whales. Some weird kind of fish? Plesiosaurs.

  Ubaldo doubled back and did a loop around us to get our attention. He jabbed his finger across the bay to the huge complex of sandbars where the Pennies had made their beachhead. A large flight of falcons and condors had lifted off again were heading back along the shore towards our former camp. Had we lingered another hour, they would have caught us for sure.

  We kept low, gliding just above the whitecaps until we were pretty far off the rocks. I thought for sure we would be spotted, but the Pennies never diverted from their course.

  As the enemy formation homed in on the old beach camp, Olivier signaled for us to gain a little altitude, now that there was little chance of us being intercepted. The beetles thrummed their broad wings to get high above the waves.

  We quickly—too quickly, it seemed—reached a point where land was no longer visible behind us and there was nothing but open water as far ahead of us as we could see. The horizons were nearer here. The planet or whatever it was, had a smaller diameter than the earth, even though its gravity felt about the same.

  But now one of the beetles began to flag. The horned beetle, whose rider, a Duster, had named ‘Rhino,’ kept swooping up and down like a roller coaster, at point dropping perilously close to the water, before struggling back up. Its mate, on the other hand, seemed to have no trouble flying level.

  Oliver flew down to see what was wrong. Karla came zooming across, spooking Tigger, who veered away before I was able to nudge him back.

  “He should go back,” said Karla, shouting above the wind.

  “He cannot,” said Urszula, hovering just above us. “The falcons would tear him apart.”

  “But he is not going to make it across,” said Karla.

  “Which column is he carrying?” I said. “If it’s the fake one he should just drop it.”

  “Fake one?” Karla screwed up her face at me. “Are you telling me that one is not real?”

  Shit. I had just spilled the beans. Olivier had apparently kept mum to everyone about the presence of our decoy

  “So which one is not real?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “I didn’t check who grabbed what. I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “We are already half-way there,” said Urszula. “Maybe if we go slower … he can make it.”

  “I don’t think our speed is the issue.”

  I leaned over Tigger’s shoulder to see Rhino plummeting yet again. This time, before he could pull up, the tip of the cracker column dipped into the water and dragged a bit before he managed to pull it free.

  “He should just drop it! Let it go!”

  “But what if he carries the real one?” said Karla.

  “Real one?” said Urszula.

  “It doesn’t matter. He should just drop it. If he flops into that water, there’s no we’re getting him out. Believe me, I’ve seen enough drowned bugs in pools.”

  Urszula suddenly wheeled around. “I see a boat!” She pointed down at the water.

  The boat was a bulky, angular contraption with twin sets of oars moving in in perfect synchrony. I expected to see oarsmen, but there were none. Each oar was linked to a central mechanism operated by a single Hashmal harnessed to a cage amidships, much like a condor pilot.

  Silhouetted against the glint of the sea, Ubaldo’s wasp was already descending in a broad arc, circling around behind the craft.

  “Holy shit! He’s gonna attack!”

  Without me having to twitch a muscle, Tigger pulled out of the formation and dove after him. For once, my intentions and those of my beast were perfectly aligned.

  ***

  A Hashmal standing watch on the prow spotted me and Tigger coming at him and screamed into the hold. Several more Hashmallim scrambled out, crossbows at the ready.

  Ubaldo reached them first. He swooped low along the hull, his wasp’s claws slashing through the water, then popped up and stopped on a dime, blasting the watchman with a tight pulse from his staff that burned a hole right through the thick of his armor.

  I had my sword, and my will manifested easily, once again I was shooting blanks. My plasma spread too wide and buffeted the Hashmallim like a strong breeze. But at least it was enough to throw off their aim and delay them from firing at Ubaldo.

  Olivier thudded down onto the stern and leapt from his saddle, staff ready for business. The rest of our party, beetles excluded, came screaming down behind us. I let loose a second shot that had more force, though not nearly as deadly as Ubaldo’s. At least it knocked one of the bowmen off his feet, and forced the other to retreat behind a capstan.

  Urszula and Karla came zipping by to harry the other bowmen with shots of their own. Ubaldo’s wasp attacked the oarsman’s cage, stabbing through a gap only to be stung itself by a pair of bolts from the crossbows.

  Olivier tangled hand-to-hand with the watchman, beating him with the club end of his staff. The watchman countered with a powered mace with blades that spun like buzz saws and chewed into his staff. We hovered just behind Olivier. I was aiming to take the man down with a well calculated blast but Tigger had ideas of his own and took off, flitting all around the boat, acting more like an excited spectator than a participant in this clash.

  Seconds apart, a pair of bolts slammed into Olivier’s legs, and he screamed and crashed to the deck. “Motherfucker!”

  This time Tigger and I were on the same page and he surged after the Hashmallim who had hit Olivier, plucking one right off the deck, snapping his neck with a quick chomp of his mandibles, and dumping him over the side.

  As the watchman, blades twirling, closed in on Olivier lying prone on the deck, Olivier swung his mangled staff and summoned a pulse that thudded into the watchman’s chest and made him crumple.

  The last Hashmal standing threw down his weapon and dropped to his knees, holding his arms high.
Urszula had her scepter leveled at his head, a wish away from crushing his sky.

  “Spare him,” said Ubaldo, climbing down off the oarsman’s cage. “He might be useful.”

  Wings thundered and one of the beetles came alighting down onto the deck, carefully laying down the cracker column.

  “Where’s Rhino?” said Karla, landing beside him.

  Far behind us, a cracker column bobbed in the swells, and beside it, Rhino, wings spread and soggy, his rider still sitting in the saddle.

  ***

  Ubaldo pulled the oarsman out of his cage and strapped himself in his place. Rowing, it turned out, worked pretty much like flying, with the added control of hip motion as a means to turn the rudder. While Urszula tended to Olivier, the rest of us flew off to see about rescuing Rhino and his rider.

  Even working together with multiple lines, the beetle proved too heavy for us to extract. But Ubaldo maneuvered the boat close enough for Rhino latch on. The beetle pulled himself partway up the side, water dripping from his waterlogged wings. His rider, a Duster named Georg, had gotten soaked but was otherwise fine, if a bit miffed about Rhino’s lackluster performance.

  Not much was left of the cracker column when we reached it. It was already soft and soggy, and beginning to come apart like a donut in a mud puddle. There was no way we could salvage it.

  Back on the boat, Urszula was still working on getting Olivier patched up. One of the crossbow bolts had struck only muscle, but the other had cracked his femur. Urszula managed to stop the bleeding, but was unable to do much for the other damage. None of us had the skill to heal him on the spot. Ydris might have, but we had sent him back to the bogs with Viktor.

  “Assholes! They had to go after my fucking legs.”

  “What did you want them to shoot?” said to smirking. “Your face?”

  “Might improve my looks.”

  We helped him onto the easy chair-like saddle that we had taken off his scorpion fly.

  I went over to our last cracker column and peeled back the wrapping with some trepidation.

  Olivier and Urszula watched me intently.

  “So? Which one did we lose?”