Wuftoom

by Mary G. Thompson

  “Let’s try it on something real.” Rayden nodded toward the place where the targets were hanging.

  Evan slowly followed Rayden over. His legs felt like frozen jelly, ready to crack.

  The old battered creatures had recently been replaced with fresh skins. Rayden pointed to a Gibben hanging by rope made of its own hair. Because its flesh had been sucked out and eaten, its large eyes took up most of the space on its tiny, shriveled body. In life the Gibben would have been covered in hair, but the Wuftoom had removed that to make the ropes, so it hung naked, staring up at the ceiling and out at Evan all at once. Evan tried not to show the disgust he felt.

  “Watch,” said Rayden. He showed Evan how to hold the Feeder so that its hump would face the target, and how to twist the weapon just so, to change the way the best part faced. “You can hit anything coming from any direction, if you learn to manipulate the membrane.” The Feeder seemed to twist and turn on its own under Rayden’s expert nubs. Evan could not even see what the old one was doing to make it turn and flex.

  Evan took the Feeder from Rayden.

  Rayden gave him another back clap and then went back across the cave to continue making more weapons.

  Foul pressed against Evan’s mind. He pushed it out, but it came back. He pushed again. Over and over again Foul tried. Evan tried to shut off his thoughts, to focus on nothing but the swing of his Feeder against the targets. He tried to feel how he had moved his membranes to pull himself through the tiny pipes. How they moved separate from his flesh but with it, how they had strength in even tiny movements.

  Whack! The Feeder knocked the Gibben off its rope. It went flying into the back wall. As it slid into the water, its giant eyes still stared at Evan. He gripped the Feeder harder and swung again. Whack! Splash! An Orpa fell from its string into the water. Evan’s arms ached and his head pounded, but he kept whacking with all his strength.

  Suddenly, Tret was next to him. “It’s time you see what we are doing,” Tret said. “I’m told you are feeling better. Master Rayden, is it true?”

  Rayden was sitting nearby with the membrane he was working. Evan had not noticed that he’d come back. Now the old leader looked up from his work, taking both Evan and Tret in.

  “He is much better,” said Rayden. “The Vitflys have gained a formidable enemy.” His lips twisted into a smile. Evan was growing to value that smile. There was something precious in it, since it carried the approval of the whole clan.

  Evan felt a surge of pride. “Let’s go!” he said, smiling bigger than Rayden. He hurt, but he wanted to see the dig.

  They slid a little way down the main passage until they reached a fork that went off to the left. It was smaller than the main passage, so that the Wuftoom had to crawl. Evan had seen this passage before and had wondered what was down it.

  Before long, they came to a hole in the pipe that did require some smooshing to get through. It opened into a cave in the ground. It was maybe a fifth as large as the main cave, and its floor was dirt rather than water. Several Wuftoom worked, lifting piles of dirt, packing dirt into the walls. In the middle of the cave was a hole. It was several feet wide, with a few blocks piled around it as a warning.

  Evan felt it. It went down to where he was supposed to be. To where the air was pure, the dark darker. He looked down on it, leaning over the blocks. Tret put both nubs on Evan’s shoulders to hold him back.

  “I know,” he said. “We’ll be there soon, and they’ll be the ones hiding.”

  There were three Wuftoom at the bottom, digging and dropping the dirt onto a platform that looked like a child’s sandbox. The platform was hanging from a contraption set up near the edge. It looked as if it was made like the rods, completely out of membrane. Membrane was also plastered down the inside of the hole.

  Tret put his nub to his mouth in a shushing motion and walked around the edges of the cave. He examined the walls, sometimes poking at a spot.

  “Okay, looks clear,” said Tret. “You have to check every time you want to talk. Since it’s near our cave, we don’t get many of the things we eat hanging around. But you can never be too careful. There are some fools who’d rather take their chances with the Vits.” Then he grinned wide. “Their cave is straight beneath us. We got that information from a smarter race. The Gibbens will be glad they sided with us!”

  Evan said nothing. He doubted the Gibben whose skin he’d just whacked would have thought so.

  “How far down is it?” Evan asked finally. It seemed like they’d gone down far just to get to the passage they called Yellow, and he knew there were much lower places.

  “It’s far,” said Tret. “But we’re combining our human memories with Wuftoom engineering.” He plucked at his membrane with another grin. “Some Wuftoom think everything human should be suppressed. But we know how to read. We know how to make things that the humans make. Why shouldn’t we use them against the Vits?”

  Why shouldn’t we care about our mothers? Evan thought. Was it possible that Tret would understand after all?

  “Using what we know isn’t going to suddenly make us feel human,” Tret continued. “It isn’t going to make us rush off to be with our human friends. We’re still Wuftoom!”

  Evan’s hope faded. He looked more closely at the membraned hole. The setup really looked like it might work. “And what happens when we get all the way down?”

  “We come before the day ends, when most of them will be together. And we drop it! It explodes and spreads poison through their cave.” Tret gave his biggest smile of the day. Rasps of approval came from the Wuftoom working nearby.

  Evan smiled back, but he found it hard to pay attention. The pressing in his mind grew stronger. He pushed and his head pounded. He was so tired of pushing. He was tired from training all night with the Feeder. He was hungry.

  You have been stronger than we thought, Foul hissed, but we are stronger than you. You will listen to us now.

  Evan froze, his smile plastered to his face.

  She hears us in the walls. She cries and cries, the Vit hissed.

  He pushed against it, as hard as he ever had before, but he could still feel the presence. He could not think. He could not show them where he was.

  “Think you’re up for it?” asked Tret. He grinned and nodded toward the hole.

  Tell us now and we will let her go.

  “Yes,” said Evan, too loudly. He tried to keep on smiling. Tret took it for eagerness.

  “I knew you’d say that!” Tret clapped him, shoving Evan forward toward the edge, so that he had to throw his nubs over the blocks to keep from falling. Tret grabbed on to his shoulders.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he said. “Maybe you need a couple more days.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Evan. He willed the thoughts out of his mind.

  Tell us, Foul hissed.

  Evan pushed. How was it still there? He felt a vibration in his mind. Laughter.

  Then you will come to us. Tomorrow. Or we come out of the walls to eat her. It laughed a moment longer, and the vibration made Evan stumble into Tret.

  Tret’s eyes glowed with concern. “Let’s get you back.”

  Evan shook his head. The presence was gone. “I’m fine,” he said. “I can start tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Tret. He kept his nub on Evan’s back and guided him up through the hole into the crawler.

  Evan’s thoughts flooded back in. He couldn’t go tomorrow. He wouldn’t do it. The Wuftoom were too close. But the Vits would kill her. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d eat her piece by piece. They could hurt her in a million ways. She would never let anyone hurt me, he thought. She’d die first.

  But Tret and the other Wuftoom wouldn’t let anyone hurt him either. They cared about him too. He couldn’t help the Vits destroy them. Evan moved faster through the crawler, ignoring Tret’s protests. He couldn’t face Tret anymore, not with what he had to do.

  Twenty-six

  THE CAVE WAS STILL AND SILENT. The sen
tries were facing outward toward the passage. Slowly, Evan lifted himself off of his blocks. He looked carefully around him, but the cave was filled with sleeping puddles. The day shift would return from the dig before long. He had to move now.

  Cautiously, he began sliding through the water. As he went, he couldn’t help sliding near other Wuftoom. With each tiny slosh, his heart beat faster. But no one woke.

  They sleep so deeply because they have full trust in each other, Evan thought. It’s in their genes and the way their brains are wired. Only my brain didn’t get rewired right. They can’t count on me.

  He had a sudden urge to wake them, to scream out the truth. Let them decide what would happen next. But he knew they didn’t care about their mothers. He couldn’t take that chance. It would be his fault, just as if he had killed her himself.

  On the far side of the cave from where Evan slept, the scholars slept together. They slept near the products of their labor, the Feeders and rods and other tools made of the precious membrane, which were stacked on shelves made of extra sleeping blocks. But Evan was not only going for a weapon to fight the Vitflys. He would take one, of course. But he also needed something that would hurt a Wuftoom, and there was only one weapon that would do that.

  Evan pulled out a Feeder and set it in the water. Carefully, he pulled more of them out and set them softly against the cave wall, until he had created a space large enough for him to push his whole arm through.

  He reached through and felt around behind the stack of weapons. For a minute he began to worry. What if Rayden had moved them, afraid of the discord from the lack of food? But no, for one Wuftoom to hurt another was unthinkable. He had not hidden them. Very carefully, so as not to poke himself, Evan slid his nub under a Vit claw. Almost without breathing, he slowly pulled his arm back.

  Soon he was staring down at it. This thing that had hurt him so badly that it might have killed him. It was so small, it seemed impossible that it could kill. Yet as he touched it, he felt the moment it had cut into his back and he squirmed, causing the water to ripple around him.

  Carefully, he put the claw on top of his Feeder and set about returning the rest of the weapons to their places. All around him, the Wuftoom slept on. Evan returned to the young ones and melted into his blocks to give the appearance of sleep.

  Ylander and two other young ones were among the first of the returning shift. As Ylander passed Evan, small gobs of dirt dropped from his arms into the water. They splashed silently but did not fully sink. Someone next to him began to move, then another, until many of the young ones were stirring around him. Only then did he give up his pretense and slowly solidify as well.

  From his blocks, he watched as the Wuftoom gathered in the night’s groups. The rule was that each group should have three, but now that so many were digging, a few groups had only two. Those groups were the ones with the most experienced Wuftoom, and even then they were assigned only to the water. Tonight Olen and Gorti, another old one, were a group of two.

  When they started filing out of the cave, Evan put on his pack, which he had folded his Feeder into, and grabbed his rod. He walked slowly behind the others. As Olen and Gorti reached the exit, Evan came up alongside them.

  “Can I join your group?” he asked. The two old ones looked at him gravely.

  “It is not safe for you, Brode,” said Olen.

  “I know everyone thinks that, but I’m not afraid. I’m all healed up. Look.” Evan turned his back to the old ones, showing them the twisted membrane. It was knotted and lumpy, but it was no longer open. “I’m sick of being hurt. I don’t want to stay here doing nothing.”

  “We would like you to join us,” said Olen, “but Rayden has made it very clear. No one is to allow you to hunt until he gives the word.”

  “Your desire is admirable. It will not be long now,” said Gorti. “There will be no more danger soon.” His voice was deep and full of confidence. Evan hoped that it was true.

  Olen gave Evan a light clap, and the old ones went on, leaving him at the cave entrance. He wanted to turn to see if Rayden was watching. Could he possibly have noticed that the claw was gone?

  Olen and Gorti were hunting for Higgers, and it was a hard assignment. Even during the brief time since Evan and the others had watched Jordan change, the population had decreased. The hunters had to go to another set of big pipes, farther from the main cave than Evan had ever been.

  Fortunately, the path was basic. After the dig, he had only one tiny pipe to squeeze through, then a small one that curved around. Then he would be in a pipe that was big enough to crawl in, and he could take that to where Olen was supposed to be going. It was a simple route, yet Evan had had to go over and over it to grasp it.

  Everything still looked the same to him. It would be so easy to get lost. And if this simple route was hard, he had no chance of finding his way home.

  He set out quickly, not wanting to let anyone stop him. Not willing to think too much, in case he stopped himself. Someone called after him, but he slid faster through the water. He did not turn to see who it had been.

  Twenty-seven

  THE TRIP UP THE SMALL PIPE was harder than it had been before. Halfway up, he almost slid backward and had to twist frantically against the pipe. He was stuck for a minute or two before he calmed down enough to go on. But he found the next, slightly larger pipe, squeezed through it, and fell heaving into the crawler.

  His pack popped painfully out and he pulled himself onto his nubs with effort. It felt like the pack had ripped the membrane open, and he struggled to calm his breathing down. He listened. All was quiet except for the sound of slowly running water. He turned over on his back and let the water soothe it.

  He rolled over onto his stomach, sighing with the coolness of the water, then struggled back to his four nubs. Slowly, he crawled down the pipe, turning his plan over and over in his head. It wasn’t much of a plan. He hadn’t had time to perfect it. He’d barely even had time to think about it.

  “This part’s dry, Olen, just like back there.” It was Gorti’s deep, commanding voice.

  “We shouldn’t even have bothered here,” said Olen. “We’ll have to go on outward.”

  Evan hadn’t expected to catch up with them so soon, and he couldn’t stop his nubs’ shaking as he came to the end of the crawler and looked down on the large pipe. He took a deep breath. He had to do this.

  The old ones were coming from the right. Keeping his head in the pipe’s shadow, he watched them slide past. When they were a few Wuftoom lengths past him, he jumped down into the stream.

  The old ones whipped around, rods raised. They had taken to carrying packs even in the water now.

  “Brode!” exclaimed Gorti. “You nearly got a face full! What were you thinking?”

  “What are you doing here?” Olen growled.

  Evan panted from exertion. “Master Olen, I’m sorry. I know you told me not to come, but I need to talk to you.” His voice sounded as desperate as he was.

  The old ones eyed each other. Gorti shrugged.

  Olen pursed his lips into a point. “It couldn’t wait until later? As a young one, you had fragile health to start with.”

  “I’m fine,” said Evan. “Really, I don’t want sit around while the Vits get stronger. I know they hate me most of all.”

  Olen gave a look to Gorti and sighed. “The Vits hate us all equally,” he said. “But I do believe they chose you to attack. It is all the more reason why you should not be here.”

  “Please, it’s important. I need to talk to you alone. You helped me change. I know you’re the only one who can help me.” It was certainly true.

  Gorti shrugged again. “Go on. I will scout the next pipe.”

  “All right,” said Olen. “I will meet you at the next fork.” Olen slid toward Evan. His expression was serious, but Evan saw kindness in the glow of his white eyes. Maybe it had been there all along, only as a human, he hadn’t wanted to see it.

  Evan waited until Olen ha
d lifted himself back into the crawler and followed from behind. Was he really going to do this?

  Olen stopped and turned back to Evan. “Do we really need to come this far?” he asked. “Gorti is out of earshot.”

  “I guess this is far enough,” said Evan, glancing behind him. The entrance to the big pipe was nearly gone. There were only a few inches between the top of Olen’s body and the pipe.

  He jumped onto Olen’s back, pushing the old worm forward as he did so. He had to press himself flat against the top of the pipe, squeezing everything but one nub, hoping Olen was squeezed down too much to move. He pressed harder, pulling his head free, so it hung over Olen’s head.

  “Do you feel that?” he asked. His voice shook and it came out much quieter than he had planned. But fear made his body strong. Olen could say nothing because his head was pinned. “That is a Vitfly claw. It’s pressed into your membrane and it will press right through.”

  Olen struggled beneath him.

  Evan pressed down with the claw. Olen’s body shook. Evan pressed down harder. Suddenly, Olen pushed up, flattening Evan’s head. But Evan kept the claw pressed.

  Olen flipped himself over, a simple trick for a Wuftoom, even in a small space. But the Vit claw was in deep, and Evan flipped with him. Even on the bottom, he pressed the claw. Slowly, heaving with effort, he let the claw rip down the old worm’s back.

  In his pain, Olen wasn’t able to hold Evan down, and Evan was able to flip over so that he was on top again. He pulled out the claw and held it to Olen’s cheek.

  “I’m going home,” said Evan. “And you’re going to take me there. Or I’ll do it again.” He rolled backward off Olen and pushed him forward with a kick.

  Olen’s voice spluttered out of him. He gave half a cry and half a groan and then whirled on Evan. A pinkish pus dripped from his open back. Evan held up the claw.

  “What are you doing?” Olen shouted. The pipes seemed to vibrate. He sounded more surprised than angry.

  Evan’s determination faltered. What was he doing? “I have to get back home,” he said. “I don’t know how to get there.”