by Brian Daley
"And she's gaining on us," Alacrity said, studying the duneline ahead. Floyt thought he could make out movement back the way the herd had come.
"We have to move faster," Alacrity told Pokesnout, " 'even if it means casualties."
"We can't let anything stop us now!" Floyt told Alacrity. "I've figured out a way to get across Lake Fret!"
"You which?"
"I'll explain later."
Pokesnout gave orders. Treeneck, Rockhorn, and the other lead gawks got the herd moving at a pace that would've been suicidal earlier in the day, but the gawks had had time to get used to the leg coverings.
Weaker members began straggling in spite of everything Pokesnout could do, their tongues lolling, breath coming harshly. Alacrity thought about trying to slow things down again but saw it would never work. The herd knew it was near the end of the high desert. Fear and the need for flight had taken over; they wouldn't be slowed this side of safety or hell.
The herd strung out farther and farther. Paloma had ridden far back to drop the last decoy carrion; it did little good. The scuttle-death was coming in the tens of thousands to form a carpet, their stench thick as smoke from a prairie fire.
A stringy old bull, whose legs had been trembling and quaking since the march began, finally reached the end of his strength, missing his footing. He skidded on front knees, then struggled up to race another three lengths. He tumbled tail over horns, nearly bringing down a second male who'd blundered into him from behind. In an instant the sand devils were clinging and biting around him, still unable to climb far.
The bull got to his feet a second time, bellowing weakly, as the last herdmembers swerved around him, devils bobbing on him with their teeth fixed in his hide. He keeled over and more warrior-workers flooded in at him. The vanguard of the herd was already at the dune saddle, bunching up as gawks jostled to get ahead of one another.
Alacrity caught a whiff of something new from the sand devils, who were more agitated than ever. He looked back and saw a thicker mob of them coming, darker than the ones he'd seen so far. One particular knot of them moved as a unit, like the eye of a hurricane.
Hive queen! And she was leading a sea of her subjects; they were slaves to the royal hunt-odor now, following it no matter where or what, laying out an emulating smell so that the plague of devils coming after, blindly obedient, would sense the command, would comply, and would put out the emulating smell in turn. Alacrity held his proteus by Treeneck's ear, yelling his idea.
Paloma noticed as Treeneck swung to retrace his way. "Where are you going?"
Alacrity pointed with his lance. "You keep 'em moving, Babyfat! I'll be right back!" Treeneck cantered off at a reckless pace.
"Cazzo!" she spat, and turned to ride for the turmoil of the duneline just in time to see a calf inadvertently trampled by its elders, bleating as it died.
Many times the size of her warrior-workers, big as a terrier, the hive queen wasn't hard to pick out. Her personal scent overcame the normal sand-devil loathing of territorial incursion; in her vicinity and along her odor trail they piled atop one another, all squirming to be close to her and bask in her aromas. They were in such transport that they failed to notice Treeneck's approach, or warnings from peripheral members of the swarm, until the gawk was in their midst.
Treeneck seemed to take naturally to the flat-footed gait that was his only hope of survival. Even in the writhing mass of the scuttle-death, they couldn't reach vulnerable flesh, but it was a nearer thing; making weak, clumsy hops from mounded hivemates, devils were coming within centimeters of the gawk's boot tops. Treeneck waded on bravely anyway.
A new scent permeated the air in the last seconds before Alacrity struck, the hive queen and her escort raising an alarm. Alacrity drove his long wooden lance down into her and through her, overhand, with all his might, the fire-hardened point striking in just between her first set of shoulders, the scare-flare claw barbs sinking deep.
With an effort that nearly ungawked him, Alacrity hauled the queen up from her worshipping subjects, a few of them dropping from her. Treeneck was already turning to trample his way back into the clear. Moving faster than most herdmembers could, the big bull left most of the wriggling mass behind, but they were already in furious pursuit, sending out summons and alarm odors tinged with the queen's scents. Sand devils converged on Alacrity and Treeneck from several sides.
The queen struggled and flailed angrily at the end of the lance. Alacrity paused long enough to make sure it was firmly fixed in her, then set off, dragging the queen over the sand, leaving a scent trail. Her hordes came flooding after.
The next few minutes were sheer adrenaline unreality, as Alacrity left the trail while praying he wouldn't fall or lose the queen, and Treeneck clomped along recklessly in the clumsy boots. Man and gawk did their best to keep track of direction; to become lost would mean an ugly death. They cut a long arc away from the rest of the herd. More and more sand devils streamed along the queen's odor trail, their frenzied aromas mingling with hers, reinforcing the urgency for those behind.
Treeneck wove around rock obstacles and occasional desert plants; the nearsighted sand devils never attempted to take shortcuts or head him off, staying right on the scent-path because its stimuli would let them do nothing else.
Alacrity began to panic, fearing Treeneck hadn't understood the plan, or had become disoriented. Then the bull rounded a boulder and Alacrity saw what he'd been praying for: the spot where he'd originally begun laying down the trail. Sand devils were still converging on it from all over.
The queen was still wriggling, but only feebly; the scent she was exuding was almost visible. Still dragging her body, Alacrity urged Treeneck on. In another minute they were at the beginning of the queen's trail again, having drawn a full circle. Treeneck went into the scuttle-death stream gingerly but quickly; the pursuit had nearly caught up with him.
Alacrity dragged the queen right to the spot where her trail began, closing the ring, then lifted her high, where she could deposit no trail, bearing her away as fast as Treeneck could manage. The leaders among the pursuing scuttle-death followed her spoor right back to where they'd started, encountering the imperative, emulating scents of other pursuers who were just starting on the circle, along with the queen's own original smells.
Their genetic programming gave them no room for doubt or hesitation. The devils leading the way started around again, laying out even more scent. More and more of the little fiends thronged to the scuttle-death superconducting ring. Alacrity, still holding the wounded queen aloft, turned for the herd.
Wouldn't surprise me if they all turned into butter …
Paloma was at the crest of the dune saddle on Rockhorn, exhorting the gawks on. The path had been churned to a gentler incline by the herd's passage, making it easier going; there'd been a dozen-plus casualties, which Pokesnout had miraculously managed to get moved out of the way with his aides' help, mostly through careful use of hind legs.
Gawklegs who'd already made the transit were grouping on the rocky stretches beyond, where the scuttle-death wouldn't go. The herdmembers were shaken but beginning to sort themselves out once more.
Alacrity showed up, his lance bare again. He'd dragged his weapon free of the wounded queen a kilometer back, not out of clemency but to give nearby devils something else to do. It may have helped, but the trampled incline was still alive with devils.
It was pandemonium. Gawks' cries of panic and dismay were deafening and the air was almost unbreatheable with dust. Alacrity pulled up his blue—now pink—bandanna again. As he drew near, the last of the herd got ready to assay the dune saddle.
Floyt and Pokesnout were about to go up, to make sure everything was all right at the crest and beyond. Treeneck fell in beside the runt alpha. Alacrity and Floyt held on tight as their mounts went up with the last few of the herd.
Then a young noncalving female in the group slipped and, bleating and hooting, slid backward, somehow still keeping upright, her l
egs widespread. Pokesnout watched, gathering himself; Floyt knew the gawk was going to try to help her. Treeneck faltered, exhausted by his labors and undecided.
Pokesnout blared something at Treeneck; the big bull swung to continue grinding his way up the hill. Alacrity held the surcingle and objected loudly. He had an impulse to go after Floyt afoot, trusting to the protection of the pathfinders. But he saw it would likely be suicide; the sand was too uncertain. And Pokesnout had brought Floyt through so far. Alacrity was borne to the top of the hill in a spume of sand and flying, nailing scuttle-death.
Pokesnout slid to a stop near the female. Floyt's heart sank when he saw what was wrong: she'd split both shoes on her two forelegs and lost one of them. The other foreleg was exposed all the way to the hoof pad. She'd had the presence of mind to rear up on her two hindsets, free of sand devils so far, but Floyt didn't see how that could last long with an animal so used to traveling on all six and built for little else. She was right there yet beyond help.
But Pokesnout was trumpeting to her, buffeting her in reverse gear to get her attention, backing his rump at her then swinging around to trumpet at her again, and backing at her once more. Frustrated, the bull swung around and belched something at Floyt, waggling the vast behind again, bouncing and wriggling it.
Like the flash of insight he'd had at the crest of the dunes, Floyt understood clearly in an unexpected instant. Some strong bond had come into being between the man and the gawk; Floyt didn't hesitate.
He took the last two spare pliabamboo sheaths. They were calf-size, too small for the female, so Floyt jammed his own feet into them. While his boots didn't fill them, their length wedged into the round segments fairly well. He eased himself down from Pokesnout's back, using his lance for balance, as Alacrity screamed at him from the top of the hill.
The feel of sand devils lunging against the plia-bamboo, gnawing at it, trying to climb to the tops of the sheaths only to fall back and try again nearly made him scramble back up onto Pokesnout or stumble madly for the top of the slope.
But Pokesnout snuffled softly at his ear and gave him a restrained nudge forward. Floyt swallowed his terror and started for the female, catching himself with his lance once or twice but perservering. Pokesnout was droning, Verities style, in the background.
She still had her exposed forelegs up, the whites showing all around her rolling eyes, but she was having more and more difficulty keeping her balance. Floyt went in close, just ahead of Pokesnout's backing rump.
She was nearly the little male's size. Floyt pushed up on her forelegs and chest with the lance, not because his strength would do much good but to show her what she had to do. She came to herself a little, and cooperated.
Then Pokesnout was in under her, jacking her chest up with his croup, still droning Verities. She listened, then struggled to maintain balance.
Holy Spirit of Tellurian Places! it came to Floyt. He's inventing a Verity on the spot, to tell her what to do!
Pokesnout dug in, legs spread for stability, trying to help her without losing his own balance.
Floyt assisted as much as he could, and batted one devil trying for the female's lashing tail. Then the two gawks were moving, but with poor coordination and maddeningly slow. Floyt shuffled and crutched along, keeping a hand on the female's flank as a comfort if nothing else, while sand devils assailed all three. The top of the dune saddle loomed in the dusk, a corona of sunset igniting the sky beyond. Floyt's soul seesawed from hysteria to exaltation and back between one instant and the next. But he looked at Pokesnout's stubborn lion-heartedness and felt a wash of fierce loyalty.
Then the female's starboard hind leg missed its footing for a moment, her weight threatening to shift and bring them all down. Floyt grabbed her port foreleg to pull, on the long chance that the extra bit of leverage might make some difference. A part of him could right well not comprehend why the life of one more gawk maiden he'd never noticed before had become so vital to him all of a sudden.
She regained her balance and centered on Poke-snout's back by dint of furious pedaling and some fancy maneuvering on the bull's part. At just about that same time, Floyt—he never figured out just how—lost his equilibrium and fell.
Pokesnout couldn't possibly have seen, but somehow he knew. The gawk managed in some way to keep things stable with his other five legs and cocked his near-midships leg up and out, an altogether unprecedented maneuver from his kind, trying to arrest the Earther's fall.
Floyt lurched, scrabbling, against the leg and just barely missed saving himself. He slid and rolled off, landing on his back, beginning a pliabamboo segments-first slide down the slope as warm sand coursed around and under him.
The scuttle-death were on him at once, first a few, then a dozen. Oddly, he felt little pain—the bites were less than the single bee sting he'd received on a field trip on Earth as a boy. He didn't know if that was because of his emotional blaze or a numbing secretion of the scuttle-death.
But numbness spread fast, even as Floyt was thrashing and tossing, trying to get to his feet. It occurred to him that a toxin that could knock over a gawk in a short time would quite probably kill a human without very much waiting around. Still, he swiped and ripped away at the sand devils that clung to him, beating at others with his lance, furious that he was being slingshot into the afterlife with so much left undone.
He was back on his feet again, free of them for a wonder, but too late. "Isn't this just like the fucking universe?" he asked Lebensraum's sky unsteadily; laughing was so much effort as to be out of the question. His head wobbled. Things became cloudy for a second, then unnaturally clear as he concentrated, feeling like he'd slept. He brought all his willpower to bear, knowing no one else could save him.
Concentration did no good, not even for his posture; he tilted backward, unable to get a foot into position to stop it, beginning a fall into a bed of sand devils who'd set up an eager feeding scent he'd hate forever. He waited for his back to hit the squirming, biting mass because he couldn't do much else.
A surprise, then, when he landed on something rather less yielding and felt distinct pain in his upper back and across his buttocks. Very large teeth bruised and lacerated him, teeth bigger than a whole sand devil. It also felt hot and was rather smelly. Too, there was something large and slimy-slidey under him. The Floyt was immobilized by another enormous weight/surface from the top. Woozily, he understood that he was in Pokesnout's mouth like a duck in a retriever's.
Raised high above the sand, head bobbing on a limp neck, Floyt blearily watched the sand devils running around to no effect a million kilometers below. Dusk was deeper or his vision was going. He coughed and spat out sand, chuckling to himself, immensely amused. Pokesnout was carrying the female as well as Floyt, sand fountaining back from his sheathed hooves.
Floyt decided to nap.
* * * *
Much later, he came around for a few moments to find himself laid out on leaves and branches layered over hard stone, close to a fire. Gawks were gathered around him curiously; Alacrity and Paloma Sudan were moving sprightly to keep them from singeing their muzzles while investigating the blaze. Verities—and New Verities, he supposed—were droning in the background. He was so woozy, he could hardly feel how saddlesore he was.
"Hobie! You're back!" Paloma cried, dropping to her knees near him and kissing his brow, cradling his head with her hands.
"Good. We were just gonna dock you pay." Alacrity winked. He flung an arm out in a grand gesture. "Long way to go. And some water waiting along the way. Listen, d'you happen to remember what you were telling me about Lake Fret? Your solution?"
It was the first Paloma had heard of it. "Hobie, you never cease to amaze me."
Floyt looked around sleepily, moistening his dry mouth. "We'll walk across."
His face lolled against Paloma's bosom and he was out again.
Chapter 14
Who're We To Argue?
"Big lake."
"A too-damn-big lake,
Paloma," Alacrity commented. "The map says Lake Fret's—lemme see—something like twenty-five kilometers wide at this point, and this is as narrow as it gets."
Lake Fret was too choppy to reflect the sky, too shallow and silty in most places to have a true color of its own; it was an unhealthy gray-black. Alacrity lay back watching it with his head pillowed against Pokesnout's ribs, patting them absently, scratching his own various bites. The gawks had attracted a new air fleet of vermin eaters, who seemed to accept the humans as part of the gawks, but the assorted tiny pests were a constant bother nevertheless.
Floyt's beard was still fairly well maintained, thanks to the survival tool's scissors. Alacrity had no need to shave, having put a hold on facial hair growth years ago, for the same reasons of convenience that had moved Paloma to stop her menstrual periods soon after she'd begun getting them.
And both men had let fingernails grow, finding them utilitarian, as other primitives did.
Alacrity studied the sky but saw no patrolling aircraft. The herd had taken careful concealment under heavily leaved candelabrum trees along the lakeshore, where they'd lain doggo for two days while the human trio sallied out in an effort to deal with the obstacle of Lake Fret.
Alacrity, Floyt, and Paloma had lit no fire since their second night down off the high desert, and chosen the route to the lake to maximize cover and minimize the dust the herd raised, taking every precaution to avoid detection and the air strikes it would draw.
There was a fair amount of traffic on Lake Fret, mostly ore barges. But none of it was likely to stop where the human and gawk expedition hid under lake—side foliage. Paloma, closer to Pokesnout's head, gave his chin a brief, thorough scratching with her red duraglaze glamornails. Pokesnout closed his eyes blissfully.
Humans and gawklegs were worse for wear, but Floyt was, after fifteen days' additional Long Trek, having fewer and fewer nightmares in which sand devils devoured their way into his eye sockets.