by Rick Johnson
Standing up with an expectant look, the Hare waited eagerly for a few seconds. Then a loud bell rang. Nothing happened immediately, but within a minute, there was an undulating rumble that gradually built in intensity. Two minutes more and there was a tremendous crashing and grinding of gears. The dreadful screeching of tearing metal and snapping of timbers. About the same time, a stream of weary, grim-faced beasts began flooding past, moving toward doors where Club Wolves were clustered.
As timbers shattered and gears cracked into pieces, the long stairways lurched to a stop. Leap-Bugs poured down the now motionless stairs, talking, laughing, sometimes cheering. Most were excited and happy. Others, not knowing what to expect from the Club Wolves, looked uneasy. But all headed for the exits as a unifed mass.
Caught completely unawares, the Club Wolves were both out-numbered and without orders. No plans existed for such a complete destruction of the Leap-Bug order of things. When the first Leap-Bugs reached the first possible exit, the wee Hare, who was one of the leaders, said, “Will you let us pass? Or do we need to force our way?”
“Don’t know,” the Club Wolf officer replied. “We wait for orders.”
“Please stand aside and let us pass, while you wait,” the Hare said.
Although they were there to keep order and enforce work, the Club Wolves realized they were completely out maneuvered by the Leap-Bugs. The numbers were too immense—thousands of beasts moving with well-ordered discipline. There was no longer any order to keep, or work to enforce. What were Club Wolves against this surging sea of determined beasts? The Club Wolf officer shouted no commands and his troops stood silently, like the wrecked machinery surrounding them.
The chaos on levels above, created by a complete loss of power, made noise of a different sort. Imagine an entire city, not simply come to a halt in an instant, but gears shattering, machinery tumbling and crashing, spits of fire flying out of metal striking metal in odd ways. Then imagine sewers backing up, ovens exploding, walls bulging and splitting—all because things designed to move in only one way, suddenly are forced into reverse. First there was a dull, rumbling reverberation, setting everything a-trembling. Then there was a tremendous crash, and a shaking and rocking that shattered windows and tore doors from their hinges.
In moments, beasts began to pour out of every building in Silverpreen. Nearly the whole population was soon in the streets: Newbies, Groomies, Mades, Silvers, and Preens. Some were wild and nearly crazed with fear. Others were angry at whoever had caused such discomfort, accusing everyone nearby of something. Mix in plenty of general wailing, weeping, and running about, and chaos seems the best term to describe the state of Silverpreen on that memorable day. The worst, or best, as you might decide, was the bent and battered, but cheering and jubilant, former Leap-Bugs surging amidst the crowds. What Silver or Preen, Groomie or Made, was not shocked to feel the touch of a grime-soaked, body-goo greased, Leap-Bug that day? Where did those hideous beasts not show up?
The very scale of the absurdity made it real. No beast could doubt that something so long thought impossible had come about. Frunge, at the time, was not in Silverpreen, but at a meeting of the High One’s Most Revered Council at Maev Astuté. Colonel Snart had sailed out of sight some time past as well, leaving the normally vicious Owner Two in charge of the city. Yet when he called on the Club Wolves to disperse the crowds and herd the Leap-Bugs back underground, the Club Wolf Commander refused to act.
Leap-Bugs Marching
The Club Wolf Commander, Major Messtus, first knew something was dreadfully wrong when a rolling tremble ran through the room where he was sitting. He thought, at first, that a particularly heavy wagon had rattled past on the cobblestone street outside the Club Wolf Station. But then a much deeper rumble, louder and more sustained, shook the Station so heavily that he rushed outside to see what was happening.
Almost instantly, beasts poured into the streets from every direction. Screaming, shrieking Silvers and Preens complaining that their coffee had been spilled all over them, demanding to know why the lights had suddenly gone out and the leaps had stopped. “Were they now expected to walk the stairs? What kind of service was this? Don’t you know what a terrible thing it is to not be able to warm my Foo-Fee’s jacket before I put it on him? What is this rot about the leaps out of service? Where is Frunge? I’ll have your head!”
This was only the beginning. The continuing tremble in the ground made Major Messtus feel sick to his stomach. He had never experienced anything like this before. Moments later, one of his junior officers rushed up. His face, normally full of the stern confidence that gave Club Wolves unquestioned authority in Silverpreen, was pale as death.
“What is the matter, my good beast?” Major Messtus cried in alarm.
The Club Wolf said nothing at first. His jaws worked, but no words came out.
“What is it, beast?” the Major demanded.
The Club Wolf still said nothing, and just feebly pointed in the direction of the entrance to the underground Leap-Bug zones. Suspecting the meaning of the Club Wolf’s despairing, defeated manner, Major Messtus pushed his way through the crowds. Forcing his way to the entrance to the underground, he met a surging mass of Leap-Bugs pouring out of the entrance, singing and cheering in jubilation. The vast numbers, trampling on the streets, had the sound of a thunder.
What could be done against such an overwhelming mass of beasts? His Club Wolves were not a tenth of the number that would be needed to control the entire Leap-Bug population if it decided to be contrary. And it had obviously decided to be contrary. Major Messtus struggled on, slowly weaving his way through the flooding mass of Leap-Bugs. At last he stopped and simply watched as the surging waves of excited beasts flowed past for the better part of an hour.
Pushed aside by the torrent of Leap-Bugs, as if all knew he was no longer relevant, the Major struggled to gather his thoughts. He had only felt this once before. As a young junior officer, in the years of the old Norder Wolf wars, he had felt the terror of utter defeat on the battlefield. The feeling that, no matter how many of your troops still stood, no matter how many arms you still had, the struggle was over. That there was no possibility that your current feebleness could hope to turn back the strength of your enemy. The feeling of utter defeat. Now that stark feeling of powerlessness ate at him again.
When the last of the Leap-Bugs had passed, Major Messtus began to make his way down the stairs to the underground to find the remainder of his troops. Before he reached the bottom of the stairs, however, the remaining Club Wolves ran past him, screaming in terror. In an instant, he also was running for his life: it was as if the underground was belching foam! Rapidly expanding waves of foam were pouring upward with a tremendous hissing sound, accompanied by a burnt, moldy odor. Most frightening of all was that, whatever the foam touched melted to a liquid state. Deafening crashes then roared above the hissing, as the underground Leap-Bug zones collapsed.
Rushing back up the stairs, Major Messtus and his troops reached the street level of Silverpreen moments before the stairway behind them collapsed. Then, with the Leap-Bug zones under the city turning to liquid, the main part of the city began sinking downward. Within three hours, much of Silverpreen had slid several feet into the ground, as the earth under it turned to jelly. By evening, the distinctive towers of the city were several stories shorter than they had been in the morning, and leaning at peculiar angles.
When the city began sinking, panic tore through Silverpreen. Frantic beasts from the level of Groomie on up rushed to save their preen. With doors and windows shattered, and buildings no longer secure, what was a beast to do? Silvers and Preens ordered Groomies to haul their preen out into the streets. Many Groomies, however, had the same worries about their own preen and deserted their posts. With the leaps dead, there were massive jams of beasts removing preen on the stairs. Arguments and fist-fights erupted, increasing the chaos. Meanwhile, the Silvers and Preens, desperate to keep the Leap-Bugs away, instructed their Mades t
o barricade several areas of the city for their exclusive use as an outdoor camp. Club Wolves battled their way through the bedlam, clearing the way for Mades to carry silk curtains and rugs out of shops, to beautify the barricades and keep prying eyes out.
It was this situation that Major Messtus reported to Owner Two somewhat later.
“What are you, Major, a raving lunatic? It cannot be tolerated!” Owner Two snarled. “The better beasts of the city are now feeling no better than residents of Port Newolf or some other such ghastly place! Filthy Leap-Bugs everywhere! The Silvers and Preens dragged down to the level of commoner beasts—elbow to elbow with Leap-Bugs, forced to be amidst the most undesirable crowds! It simply can’t be borne! The very reason Silvers and Preens flock to this city is because they are promised they won’t have even to see such undesirable, dirty, disgusting beasts! What will Silverpreen be if it can’t be a safe and wholesome refuge for the Silvers and Preens! Those filthy beasts must be put back in their place! If they continue to roam Silverpreen freely, the city will come to a bad end—lawlessness, block after block of smelly young beasts, destroying Silverpreen’s sublime ways and customs! A mob of stinking Leap-Bugs in virtual possession of Silverpreen! I will not tolerate it!”
“How do you expect me to worry about the delicate feelings of the Silvers and Preens,” the Club Wolf Commander said to Owner Two, “when it is all my Clubs can do to help all the beasts in need! Beasts are injured, buildings are sinking into the ground—and you’re worried about Leap-Bugs touching some beast they shouldn’t? They’re not harming anyone—sure they’re going some places they shouldn’t, but what do you want me to do, when the entire city is sinking into the ground? Don’t you see—there’s no place to send them back to!” Finding himself, even at that moment, slipping sideways as the building tilted and buckled beneath him, Owner Two was silent for a moment. Then, feeling completely powerless for the first time in his life, he continued to rage at the Club Wolf Commander for his refusal to obey orders.
“It will serve every one of those miserable Leap-Bugs right, if I were to send them back below and lock them there forever! Round every one of them up and march them down there. I want them down there immediately!” he ranted. He stormed, cursed, stamped, and howled abuse at his commander, until he fell exhausted into a chair.
“Sir, I don’t mean to be rough with you,” the Club Wolf Commander replied. “But you don’t seem to understand. I’ve been trying to tell you—there is no underground anymore. It’s gone, completely gone. Reports are that, somehow, the Leap-Bug area was melted. That’s why the city is sinking—the ground just melted away.”
“Melted?” Owner Two said. “How can earth, wood, iron, just melt?”
“Don’t know that yet, sir,” the Club Wolf replied. “It’s just the report I got from my troops.”
“And there’s nothing left?” Owner Two asked.
“No,” the Club Wolf said. “It’s just like the ground under Silverpreen suddenly turned to slime, and everything above sank into it.”
“And no one knows anything? It just happened?” Owner Two howled.
“Sir, no one saw anything,” the Club Wolf replied. “The last troops that were down there said that, all of a sudden, huge clouds of foam came out of nowhere. They barely got out alive. They said there was just expanding waves of foam and a burnt, moldy odor everywhere. The foam seemed to melt anything it touched. One of my troops had to have his boot cut off because it partly melted.”
“His boot melted?” Owner Two said. “How can a leather boot melt—that’s not natural.”
“Nothing natural about this, sir,” the Club Wolf replied. “No one’s ever seen anything like it. It happened so fast—literally seconds. A couple of my troops were injured when things began to collapse down there. Only reason they got out alive is that a huge Badger showed up and carried them to safety.”
“A Badger?” Owner Two asked. “One of the Leap-Bugs?”
“Didn’t seem to be, sir,” the Club Wolf replied. “But there was so much chaos, it didn’t matter. He just carried them to safety, and walked away into the crowd. Sure would like to thank him better.”
“You didn’t know him?” Owner Two said suspiciously. “Did you ask to see his Frunge Letter?”
“No,” Major Messtus replied, struggling to hold his growing anger in check. “You may forget, sir, that we were fleeing for our lives at that moment. I may have neglected some of the finer points of Silverpreen’s customary order of things. My apologies, sir.”
“So we may have an uninvited guest in Silverpreen, running around loose. Is that what I’m to understand?” Owner Two fumed.
“Yes, sir,” the Major answered, “the one that saved the lives of two of my troops.”
Owner Two gave a deep sigh, “Idiots. Fools—all around me,” he muttered. “All right, I understand what you say. The question is what are we to do about it?”
“My Club Wolves have their paws full right now, just trying to help all those beasts who are injured and homeless. I don’t have enough troops even for that, sir. We need lots more help. We can’t deal with it ourselves.”
“I’ll put out an emergency call to all the Skull Buzzard units and Battle Stallion cruisers in the area,” Owner Two said grimly. “Will that be enough to deal with it?”
“If we can get them,” the Club Wolf replied. “Several brazzens of Skull Buzzards were redeployed to help deal with the rebels in the eastern regions. And there’s risk to pulling all the Battle Stallion cruisers off the seas—pirates, you know.”
“Silverpreen is destroyed!” Owner Two snarled. “Blast the pirates! If we don’t take care of the Silvers and Preens, Silverpreen will never recover! I want every available Skull Buzzard brazzen and Battle Stallion cruiser reassigned to Silverpreen relief!”
“That will take several days, sir,” the Club Wolf Commander replied. “Frunge assigned the Battle Stallion cruisers to escort the ship carrying Colonel Snart and a shipment of silver to the High One. There’s pirates in those waters and Frunge wasn’t taking any chances. I’ll need Frunge’s approval before I can call any cruisers back.”
“But I’m in charge here!” Owner Two howled. “We have an emergency here!”
“Yes, I know,” Major Messtus replied, “but Frunge is Owner One, and outranks you, sir. In these circumstances, I can’t give an order that he wouldn’t approve, even with all due respect to your own exalted self. You know how he is about his silver. If that shipment got taken by pirates, there’d be hell to pay.”
“All right,” Owner Two said wearily, “call in as much help as you can get. I’ll send a message to Frunge, asking for the cruisers to be sent back.” His face turned ugly again, and he eyes narrowed. “One more thing though, Commander,” he said. “I want those Leap-Bugs driven out of Silverpreen immediately! Even if we can’t send them back underground, I won’t have them hanging around like trash in our streets! Silverpreen is built on the very principle that the betters never mix with their inferiors. We don’t like them, and they don’t like us. We don’t want those ghastly Leap-Bugs near us! If Silvers and Preens no longer have privacy from such trash, Silverpreen will have no reason to exist! And further, I won’t provide food and shelter for Leap-Bugs to hang around, lazy and unworking, just to outrage our eyes and noses. What we have is ours, and I will not share it with Leap-Bugs who have outraged every custom and law of Silverpreen! I don’t care what you have to do—I want them out of the city tonight!”
“But, sir, where are they to go? At least until this great catastrophe is over, can’t we let the Leap-Bugs stay? I fear that everyone will be inconvenienced for some time, sir. Is this additional inconvenience so very great?”
“Major, this situation has more than one aspect,” Owner Two replied. “Silverpreen is a new kind of order, with some special refinements that must be protected. Two great customs are the foundation of Silverpreen. First, every beast—except the Leap-Bugs, who are beneath such hopes—yearning to rise, like t
he Silvers and Preens, above those around them. Secondly, the most fundamental glory of the Silvers and Preens is that they do not stoop to look at, let alone touch or approach, any beast from the lower ranks. Oil the entire order with a never-satisfied thirst for preen, and these two great customs make it possible to have a well-functioning order, without the nastiness of constant thuggery. It’s much cleaner. That’s why we have so many fewer Club Wolves here than the High One needs. For our delicate and refined order to hold, these customs must not be challenged. If there is no privacy from Groomies and Newbies—let alone Leap-Bugs—how will the Silvers and Preens remain so exalted that all yearn for their station? So, you see, these ghastly Leap-Bugs must be driven from here, or the very order of Silverpreen will be in danger.”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Major Messtus replied, turning quickly on his heel. Leaving Owner Two sitting in a comfortable chair, in his otherwise wrecked office, the Club Wolf Commander turned the situation over in his mind. He realized that the fate of Silverpreen now rested more in his paws than in those of Owner Two.
“Craziest thing I ever saw,” the Club Wolf said to himself, “refuses to leave his office, despite the fact it’s tilted somethin’ terrible and all the furniture’s tumbled into a pile. Huzzahs for Silverpreen’s success, within the very jaws of its destruction! He’s completely deluded—thousands of Leap-Bugs milling around, hollering and cheering; Groomies and Newbies yelling, barely sane, shaking their fists and throwing things; Silvers and Preens pulled back behind barricades their Mades threw up to shield their privacy as much as possible; trouble everywhere. I’m supposed to drive the Leap-Bugs out of town, in the midst of all this?”
Suddenly the Major startled, then gaped in amazement. Across the city, from every direction, sounds of marching and singing.
We didn’a die & they didn’a kill us,