Win

  You care about your companions, Arion says. It is good that you think of them with affection even now.

  I smile again and think a muddled warm thought in reply.

  More volleys of gunfire.

  Suddenly I notice Zaap has jerked and stiffened, and now he’s slumping in his seat, lying forward more than usual. At the same time his delphit has begun slowing down. . . .

  In two heartbeats, Thalassa passes him on her sha, glancing back at him just once, and taking his position in the Race, now second only to Leetana. Thalassa is too far for me to see her face, but I can only imagine its gloating expression.

  Oh, no! Oh damn . . . Zaap!

  Zaap and his delphit continue moving forward, only now the boy is lying on the creature’s back, surprisingly not falling off.

  Somehow, impossibly, I am made aware of swirling pain images. . . . They are inside Zaap’s delphit’s mind . . . and now they fill my mind.

  He’s hurt, badly.

  The other Contenders and even my teammates don’t seem to notice that anything has happened, so skillfully Zaap keeps his seat—even now. All they might see is that he is slowing down. But it’s the heat of the Race, and Contenders switch position constantly, fall back and advance.

  I keep moving forward, watching Zaap’s delphit. . . . It is still speeding through the water, slowly losing distance, but still much too far ahead of me.

  Another couple of minutes, and the frontrunners begin reaching the shore. The current leaders, Leetana and Thalassa glide fiercely up to the beach, and their delphit and sha rise out of the water transforming into two large Atlantean predatory birds. Their riders skillfully change position to adjust to the new shapes of the suddenly-feathered bodies beneath them.

  The birds hop with their powerful legs, leaving claw-marks on the sand, and the women barely step onto solid ground a few feet from the row of blinking rainbow beacons. They do this to trigger the Games sensors and register their completion of the first portion of the Race—before taking off into the air.

  In an unbroken continuation from the water course, a hovering array of beacons rises up hundreds of feet into the air to designate the flight path of the Race.

  Overhead, several floating audience boxes slow down to watch the action at the official landing spot while the crowd noise swells with excitement.

  More and more Contenders arrive at the landing, desperately scrambling out of the surf. Quite a few of them continue to fire weapons, so there are now bodies on the beach. Projectiles whizz by and lethal beams of energy leave scorch marks on the sand. . . .

  Deneb Gratu’s sha transforms into the conspicuously large, golden dragon-bird. As they lift off, he strikes it—in a needless act of cruelty—with the length of the cord attached to the harness, urging it to go faster by brute force.

  Among the dozens of arrivals, Kateb and Brie make it to shore and their pegasei become birds. Brie rides an Earth eagle, oversized to carry her effortlessly up into the air.

  As Arion carries me up to the shallow beach filled with emerging Contenders, I look anxiously for any sign of Zaap.

  But first, my attention is drawn to the sight of Lolu in trouble. . . . The girl Technician’s caught up in a bizarre struggle with the lead of her pink delphit’s harness that’s weirdly caught on something in the shallow water, possibly a small outcropping of underwater rocks. Lolu is pulling at the harness while her delphit undulates in the shallows, unable to proceed, waiting for her to free it.

  Even as I watch, Lolu gives a hard tug and lands backwards on her rear end with a splash and a yell of frustration. Meanwhile the harness breaks apart . . . and comes off the delphit completely.

  The pink delphit is suddenly free of the quantum containment. It flashes with brilliant light then explodes into a cloud of multi-colored plasma. It streaks over the beach and rises many feet, then simply fades away into nothing.

  Lolu stands, holding the broken harness in one hand, staring at the sky in desolation. And then—even as I hurry out of the water toward her, pulling Arion with me and forgetting to ask my pegasus to transform—Lolu begins to bawl.

  Chihar reaches her at the same time as I do—having first prudently directed his pegasus to become an aerial creature. Lolu’s face is a mess of snot and running tears, and her kohl-outlined eyes are smudged despite her careful daily re-application of the traditional eyeliner earlier this morning.

  Oh, Lolu. . . .

  “All right, listen now,” Chihar says to Lolu calmly, patting her shoulder. “I need your help. My hand has been wounded, and it’s difficult for me to maintain my grip seated.”

  “What? I don’t—I can’t—” Lolu chokes on her words. “I can’t be disqualified . . . not now, not now, please—”

  “This is a very large titernakat bird,” Chihar interrupts her, pointing at his pegasus in avian form. “It can carry both of us easily, and you don’t appear to be much heavier than a couple of equipment bags. So, climb on and help me stay seated. Hurry now!”

  Lolu stops crying and stares at Chihar with amazement. “You—you mean ride with you?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, but we need to hurry!” Chihar says firmly, and pushes Lolu toward his waiting bird.

  “Will you both be all right?” I ask.

  He gives me a confident meaningful glance and nods. “Now, please go, Imperial Lady, all is well here,” he adds.

  I smile quickly in incredible relief.

  Chihar climbs up on his titernakat first with some difficulty due to his damaged hand, then Lolu scrambles up after him, dutifully making sure he’s seated properly. Their huge bird takes off without much effort.

  We must go now, also, Arion tells me.

  I notice too late that he’s reverted back to his classic winged horse shape, which is completely my fault for not giving him the proper transformation image. Now we’ll have to fly up the mountain in pegasus form and lord knows what we’ll be doing for the third and final transformation. . . .

  But none of it matters now. In that moment I see Zaap and his delphit washed up on the beach.

  All at once I feel sick, as though I’ve been dealt an invisible blow in the gut. I rush forward, almost letting go of the cord, and Arion follows me.

  Zaap is lying face-down on top of his delphit who carefully remains in the shallow water so as not to cause the boy to roll over. When I reach them, I see that blood is pouring out from at least two places in Zaap’s chest and his back, swirling with red eddies in the water. His green uniform is scorched, and underneath, the cheap, pitiful, low-end body armor is completely melted by the gun blast. His wound is a mess. . . .

  “Zaap!” I call out, touching him gently. Then I lift him up with care, and drag him off the delphit and through the lapping surf onto dry sand, just past the waterline.

  “Zaap . . .” I say, laying him on his back and touching his face and neck, desperately checking for a pulse. I find it, a weak fluttering pulse, and Zaap opens his eyes suddenly, with a ragged breath, and looks at me.

  “You’ll be okay, Zaap!” I speak at once, urgently. “Just hang in there, okay? I’ll get you to a med tech! Let me press your self-disqualify button, all right? Let me just find where—”

  “Gone . . .” he says faintly. His eyes turn to his own chest and his finger twitches.

  I realize suddenly that his Contender token must’ve been in the same place where this huge horrible wound is gaping in his chest, and it has probably been fused and melted with his organs.

  Zaap can’t self-disqualify.

  My throat starts closing up as the pressure rises, threatening to choke me. I swallow and hold my breath and then listen to the boy speak so quietly that I have to lower my ear to his lips.

  “Goodbye. . . . Please . . . win. . . .”

  “No, Zaap!” I exclaim, forcing myself to smile. “Come on, now! We’re not done here! What about that wild animal nature preserve you’re going to build? We’ll build it together! I promise! You’re my very fir
st teammate, you and then Chihar! Besides, you’re supposed to still try to kill me! Remember how you said, you’ll ‘kill me later?’ So you see, you can’t—”

  “No . . .” Zaap whispers. “Don’t want later . . . not kill you. . . . You . . . my friend.”

  “Zaap!”

  But the boy is gone. His eyes have stilled, looking up at me and through me into the sky.

  Chapter 89

  Deep wrenching sobs rise up inside me and I cry, shaking full-body. Several long seconds of agony swallow me up, and I cannot think or remember where I am, and why, and what I’m doing—or supposed to be doing.

  Then the voice of Arion cuts with clarity through my morass and dissolution.

  Gwen Lark, I grieve with you. . . . Honor him later. But now you must go, he speaks inside me with alien compassion.

  In that moment I inhale deeply, forcing my ragged sobs back down deep inside me.

  And then I look up.

  There’s Kokayi Jeet, running toward us, leading his glorious flamboyant rainbow bird by the cord.

  “No, amrevet, no!” Kokayi exclaims in a dark voice which I’ve never heard him use before, as he crouches down next to us. “Is he gone? No! What happened to him?” Kokayi puts his hand gently on Zaap’s forehead and smoothes back a few strands of the boy’s curling brown hair, with only a residue of gilded dye remaining.

  I wipe my face with the back of my hand and try to compose myself enough to answer.

  “Who did this to him?” Kokayi says fiercely, looking into my eyes.

  “Thalassa,” I say. “She shot him—back in the water.”

  Kokayi makes a horrible sound. “He was flying—so far ahead of everyone. . . . Then—he was slowing down. So I stayed behind to see if he was hurt. . . . We should go now,” he says in a hard voice, then gets up and leaps onto his bird’s back.

  I stare at him. “Yes, go now. . . .” I mutter.

  “Imperial Lady Gwen Lark,” Kokayi says, turning to look at me. “Get up on your pegasus—right now. Do it for the boy. . . . He would want you to go!”

  And with those words, Kokayi soars into the blazing white morning sky.

  I spend a few seconds arranging Zaap’s body neatly on the sand of the beach. I know that eventually the Games staff cleanup crew will come to take away the dead. But for now, I can’t just leave him like this. . . .

  My hands tremble as I straighten the folds of his uniform and then straighten his sleeves and his collar and brush back a few curly brown wisps on his forehead.

  Last of all, I inhale with a shudder and then gently close his eyes.

  But I am not done.

  I stand up and walk to the waterline where Zaap’s delphit lies, partially beached, stirred by the incoming surf.

  “I’m so sorry. . . .” I mind-speak to it.

  We both grieve . . . the alien being tells me.

  I bend down and untie the several knots of the radiant cord wound around the delphit’s body.

  “Please, remember him,” I think-say, as I remove the quantum containment harness.

  We don’t know how to forget, Zaap’s pegasus replies in freedom. And then the explosion of color and light comes, and the pegasus rises and dissolves like vapor. . . . It too is now a memory.

  I turn around and find Arion standing a few feet away watching me with the boundless violet eyes.

  As for everyone else—suddenly I realize that the beach is now empty, except for the fallen bodies and the two of us—human and pegasus. All the other Contenders and pegasei have gone ahead, flying up toward the mountains.

  I find I’m still trembling, plunged into a strangely unnatural, peaceful zen state of numbness, hopelessness. Hel shines down on me and the ocean wind blows, while the surf beats gently.

  But then, like a bucket of cold water, something hard, angry, wild comes to me, cutting through the despair like a radiant knife.

  “We need to go,” I speak out loud and think it. And then I repeat, more urgently, rushing toward my pegasus, “Arion, let’s go!”

  Your will to continue, Arion says. You have regained it.

  “Oh hell, yes!” I say fiercely as I climb on the pegasus’s back faster than I’ve ever been able to do previously on my own. Then I lie forward, my hands circling the equine neck to steady myself, and grasp the mane.

  “Go, go, go!” I cry, even as Arion rises, beating his great wings, flying along the air pathway marked by the rainbow beacons.

  We are over the beach and flying past the low cliffs toward the interior, over some green and stony land, then some sparse residential areas. And yet the hovering beacons force us to rise even higher.

  The wind surrounds me in a roaring ocean, and I squint, keeping my face down, clutching the mane with my hands and the body of the pegasus with my thighs and legs, terrified to let go and plummet to my death below. . . .

  When I dare to look down, I see far off to my left the City of Poseidon’s outer suburbs. We are flying in a different direction, more to the north, where in a white and silver haze the range of Nacarat Mountains rises, snaking in jagged curves like a great continental wall.

  Their blunt tops are known as the Great Nacarat Plateau—a perfectly flat desolate plateau of underlying rock covered in places with a thin layer of soil and sparse vegetation. The plateau stretches for miles and miles for most of the continent, in an east-west direction. It is regularly subject to high-altitude electrical thunderstorms and often obscured in a thick cloud layer.

  Yes, a lovely place indeed to hold a land Race. . . .

  My bitter thoughts are transmitted to Arion, and he replies with a calming image of a few white clouds against a clear white blazing sky.

  I squint, blinking in the wind, and try to make out what lies ahead in the aerial path between the beacons. If I stare hard, I can see tiny dots of flying Contenders, so far ahead of me that it’s ridiculous.

  The best I can hope for now is to just cross the Finish Line, coming in dead last, in order not to be disqualified from Stage Four of the Games for not completing the Race. This way at least I can give it my best shot and not embarrass Aeson.

  Suddenly I remember that I still need to give my pegasus a new animal picture-form for the third and final transformation.

  I need to do it like, right now, or in the next few minutes!

  Crap, crap, crap. . . .

  My mind goes into a nervous spin as I think of galloping horses, gazelles, zebras, buffalo, and various herds of antelope, all from the nature documentaries I’ve watched back on Earth.

  These are all fine, but you must pick one, Arion tells me.

  “I know!” I think-say. “I’m still deciding! Which one runs faster? I mean, it probably doesn’t make all that much difference, but I want to at least catch up a little!”

  We are catching up, Arion says. I am flying very fast right now. . . . Faster than many of those bird-forms.

  And the pegasus is right. As I stare into the distance at the mountain range that’s rapidly growing in size, starting to fill up most of the sky before us, I notice we have indeed caught up with many of the flying Contenders—at least those bringing up the rear of the entire racing group. I can now distinguish them individually, people and bird-shapes. . . .

  But—how is that possible? Aren’t the birds naturally faster than a winged horse?

  Your sense of urgency is far greater than many of theirs, Arion says. I sense your need, and it gives me the precise focus and ability to propel this animal form to its limits. Besides, the Gebi pegasus shape is very fast in flight, which is a little-known fact among your kind.

  “Oh, really?” I whisper out loud. “This is amazing, and impressive, and a little scary all at once!”

  As you will see, most of the others in the Race will instruct their pegasei to take the winged horse shape in the third and final portion of the Race, in order to run on land—under the mistaken assumption that it is the best suitable shape for such a task.

  “You mean it’s not?” My
mind is churning with possibilities as I see the backs of Contenders atop great birds, just a hundred or so feet ahead of me. Meanwhile the stationary hovering beacons flash by on both sides. . . . A few levitating Games audience platforms climb in altitude alongside our flight path. And the mountain range is all around us as we’re still rising, rising. . . .

  Not necessarily. Here is your chance to stand out from the crowd. Choose a faster animal to make up even more time.

  “I will,” I say. “But I’m worried—we haven’t even practiced me riding any other animal. What if I fall off?”

  Be confident and you will not. But you need to give me your choice quickly now, because we are almost up the mountain.

  In that moment I’m suddenly distracted by the sight of something golden glittering far above us, at the very summit near the plateau. It is silhouetted against a grey cloud layer hanging low above the plateau, from which distant lightning flashes. . . . The golden shape resolves into that of a familiar dragon-winged bird and its rider . . . Deneb Gratu.

  There’s some kind of a weird struggle going on. I watch the immense wings flail and beat with agitation—hence the rapid sparkle—and then Deneb’s arms pound mercilessly, as he strikes the bird form which starts to spin and tumble out of control.

  Another sudden move, and Deneb Gratu’s body separates from the golden bird. The giant Athlete continues grasping the bird’s harness and they twist and tumble together about fifty feet, as Deneb desperately hangs on with both hands.

  Finally, in a spectacular moment of freedom, the golden bird tosses its body wildly and shakes him off, forcing the man to let go.

  Just then, lightning splits the slate-grey clouds with hairline fractures. . . .

  With a desperate yell Deneb Gratu falls down hundreds of feet to his death before the cliff face of the mountain.

  For a moment I am so stunned that I freeze.

  Then I hear distant peals of thunder. . . .