The Finger of God: a Thalassia novel

by Patrick McClafferty

  The Finger of God

  by PD McClafferty

  Copyright ©2015 PD McClafferty

  ISBN: 978-0-9864245-4-0

  All rights reserved

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  For more books by this author, please go to http://pdmcclafferty.com

  Table of Contents

  Map of Pangea

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 1

  Hedric Schwendau clutched the edge of the bolted-down crew’s table as the gondola performed a vertical drop. A sickening drop. The chair he threw almost hit his Uncle Padraig’s head, but instead struck a lever on the far cabin wall. For a second he felt a burst of elation at the destruction he’d caused. For a second. An instant later he realized what he’d done, and his young eyes swung desperately to the face of the man standing frozen in the corridor, almost, but not quite in the gondola. The boy raised one small hand in mute supplication as, with a shriek of tearing connections, he and the gondola fell away.

  Hedric watched Padraig’s face grow smaller as the distance between them grew. He saw the vast airship spin crazily upward, freed from the weight of the massive rear gondola. Crazy, dangerous thoughts spun through his mind. His temper tantrum had just killed everyone aboard the Daedalus, as surely as it had killed him. He thought to himself as he watched his life fall apart.

  It wasn’t one single spectacular event that saved Hedric’s life, but rather a series of minor quirks. The first lifesaving quirk was that the Daedalus was only at five hundred feet when the gondola tore free, and not a thousand where it was supposed to be. The second coincidence was that Hedric, in his rage, had thrown all the chair cushions in a pile at the back of the cabin, as he hurled the chairs themselves out of the window. The removal of the chairs probably saved his life, as did the cushions. The third coincidence was the trees. Only in that particular section of Pangea did wide leafed thick-limbed trees grow to such spectacular heights. The gondola only fell two hundred feet before it struck the limbs, slowing the plunge somewhat. The last coincidence was the river.

  To Hedric it was like being the only nut in a small can and then shaken soundly. He bounced off the table, the walls, the floor, and finally came to rest on the pile of cushions at the far end of the cabin. The crash as the gondola struck the trees shook him to his core, and flying glass from the smashed windows bit at his face and hands. He hit his head on something and lay stunned for a moment. Water splashing coldly on his face brought him back to reality in time to see the crushed gondola roll over, water rushing in the broken windows as it began to sink.

  He coughed—the water tasted of tree bark and his own blood. A red film blurred his vision, and he wiped at his face, feeling stiff and bruised. His hand came away bloody. The gondola rolled once more, and he clutched a cushion desperately, floating with it out of the shattered window. There was a great belch of air from the gondola, and the boy watched in horror as the only tie with his past rolled over, disappearing into the sluggish, reeking river. Another sodden cushion popped to the surface, and then a third. A few more iridescent bubbles rose to the top of the oily water and popped, as high above the wind moaned through the tree tops.

  The bug had eight legs, a black shiny body the size of a robin’s egg, and was crawling slowly up his out-flung arm. Multifaceted eyes, set on short waving stalks, regarded him, this strange warm mountain it had found in its path. Hedric opened one eye groggily, and stared at the bug for several seconds, before he realized that the creature was crawling up HIS arm. With a screech he shook the bug off and painfully got to his feet. The world swam around him for a moment, then settled down. Through the tree limbs he could see the ever-present planetary rings of Thalassia glowing golden in the sun. Taking an uncertain step, Hedric looked down on the three muddy, filth covered pillows he had been sleeping on, and began to cry.

  “Mommy!” His high pitched voice wailed in heartbreaking anguish. Overhead a brightly plumed bird paused its mating call and glanced down. “Uncle Padraig, I’m sorry! Help me!” The despairing voice called into the trees. A ray of sun slanted through the broad leaves, and the bird continued its song. “Uncle Gorku!” The boy hiccupped; the strange sounds interrupting the bird one more time. It snapped a long orange bill in irritation, and flew off to find a quieter place to woo a mate. Behind him the boy cried again.Later the boy awoke, his crying jag finally spent. “I’m hungry!” He called into the woods, rubbing his belly. It wasn’t surprising when nothing replied. His stomach growled and he gritted his teeth. This was his own doing, and now he was suffering the consequences, he reasoned. He ought to begin acting like a man. This was, after all, his thirteenth birthday. He stepped off the waterlogged cushion and made his way up the overgrown bank of the river. On the way he saw a shiny green pod hanging from a small bush, and without thinking, popped it into his mouth. The taste, when chewed, was oily and bitter, and suddenly his mouth felt like it was filled with a thousand sharp needles. He spat the half-chewed pod on the ground and looked around desperately for something to wash his mouth with. All there was, was the river. He plunged his face into the oily water and took a trembling mouthful. Rinsed. Spat. Took another, and another. Finally the pain began to subside as a numbness spread first to his tongue, then lips, then face. He coughed and drool ran down his chin, but he never felt it. He curled up on the sodden cushions in misery and let sleep take him again.

  The next day he was more careful. He crept up the bank and studied the various fruits and berries he could see. The red berries the birds and small black squirrels fought over, but the black berries they left alone. Filling his torn and stained shirt with crimson berries made him feel that he was the king of the world. He sat on his cushions, like a throne, and ate his fill. Then he threw up. He found out, eventually, that he could eat four or five berries at a time without getting ill. It would keep him alive, barely, but it didn’t do much for his hunger. He also threw up the first time he ate a large crawling beetle. By the time he’d finished his tenth insect, he didn’t even think about it anymore.

  On the fifth day, half delirious from dehydration, he drank from the river. The pain hit him in the abdomen shortly thereafter, and he barely managed to get his pants down before violent diarrhea overtook him. Hedric stared stupidly at the trees swaying over his head, then like his fading memory—his consciousness was swept away.

  ~~~

  “No! By the five frozen hells of perdition, no!” The immense vessel shuddered again from the shrieking winds outside. Hedric Schwendau, kneeling alone in his tiny cabin, wore hot anger on his young face. On his hands and knees, ear pressed to a hole he had kicked in the thin stateroom wall of the forward gondola he found that he could listen to the conversation in the control cabin only ten feet away. Tanden Barr, the helmsman and bear of a man who had been speaking, was a big man, skin and bald head brown and weathered from years at sea. He had been shouting for several minutes.

  “Tanden.” Hedric heard Padraig Hansen say in his infuriatingly calm voice. “Stop thinking in two dimensions. This airship can also travel up and down. If the wind is strong near the surface, we CAN go over it.”

&n
bsp; “She’s not right. Whoever heered o such a thing?”

  “Take her up, Tanden.”

  “Bloody…” The big seaman let the curse trail off, and Hedric felt the great length of the airship lurch upward. The effects were immediate as the jostling of the winds died away to a gentle rocking. The ship creaked once more, before the normal sounds of smooth flight resumed the whir of the prop and the hum of the small hydrogen powered motor.

  “Well, I’ll be…” Tanden muttered in the suddenly quiet cabin. “I should o stayed a skipper on me own fishin’ boat. I’ll never get the hang o this contraption.”

  “Nonsense. I wouldn’t have anyone else at the helm. You’re doing a fine job.” His Uncle Padraig sounded reasonable, but Hedric could picture the tall man’s smug self-satisfied face. He always seemed so self-assured it made Hedric sick.

  “If’n ye say so, Captain.” The pilot sounded dubious.

  “I do.” Hedric heard the man unbuckling himself from his seat. “I’ll be in my cabin in case you need me. Just keep her at this height and heading. We should be all right.” Hedric looked out of the small glass window in his cabin, at the ocean of clouds, so serene when seen from up here, and sighed before he turned away. He was so bored.

  Uncle Padraig’s cabin was small, as cabins go, especially for the captain of a ship. Just large enough for a bed, a desk, and a plump overstuffed chair for sitting and reading. Unfortunately, it sat adjacent to Hedric’s cabin, and the small hole that the boy had kicked in the wall went unnoticed by Padraig, but not by Hedric, since it provided the eavesdropping boy a hidden access to the older man’s conversations.

  “Selene?”

  “Hello, Padraig.” Hedric guessed that Selene chose a physical presence this time, rather than just talk. He thought it must be grand to be a goddess and flit about the world at will, without a care or worry.

  “We’re nearing the coastline of Pangea. We should cross sometime tomorrow, if I figured our position right.”

  “Good.” Her voice was all business. “There’s a storm to the south of you, but you’ll be safe if you stay on your current heading.”

  “Are you sure?” Padraig sounded worried. “I’ve heard that storms can be unpredictable.”

  “Trust me.” There was honey in her low voice.

  Padraig paused for several long moments. “We’ve had trouble with Hedric again. He told us that he was tired of eating the same swill as the rest of us. Since Meagan was cooking that night she took it personally, and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. She had him halfway out the door before we could stop her.”

  The rich voice laughed softly. “She has a hot temper, that one.”

  “Yeah, we dragged the boy back in and he smashed his plate of food on the floor. Bel backhanded him across the table, and we sent him to his room hungry, to nurse his own bloody nose. That was one of the better days. Gorku and I have done our best to teach the lad self-defense, the history of the world, and what science and engineering we could glean from the rest of the crew. It hasn’t helped much. The boy is still obscenely arrogant and subject to violent fits of temper.”

  Selene sighed. “I knew that this would be hard. I didn’t think that it would be THIS hard. Hang on is all I can say. There’s a change coming, although I can’t tell from what direction.”

  “Technology again, Selene? Or magic?”

  “Neither. Intuition. You should try it sometime. As far as magic goes, you know that I don’t use it. Everything I do has a technological basis. That medallion you fear is simply advanced technology. This moon I live on is the same. Watching out for this world is our job and I’m no more a goddess than you are a god. I can’t help what the local population thinks.”

  “You’ll always be a goddess to me, Selene.” Padraig’s voice was deep and filled with passion. Hedric was sure his uncle was more than a little smitten with the beautiful dark haired woman. Goddess was as good a term as any to call her—although queen was sometimes more appropriate. She also had a sister, the Goddess Rhiannon.

  “Well now…” The silky voice became a purr. “Why don’t you just tell me a little more?” Hedric stopped listening at that point, a burning anger welling up inside him. The next day, he decided, he would tell them just what he thought.

  The morning sun hurt Padraig’s eyes when he stepped into the gondola. He could see the tops of the clouds far far below him. He never noticed Hedric follow him into the small control cabin.

  “What’s our altitude?” He tapped a finger against the small altimeter, and it stayed reading zero.

  “Dunno. The altimeter broke during the rough weather yesterday.” Gorku was rubbing his smooth jaw. He’d obviously just come on duty. “Tanden didn’t say anything.”

  “Hmmph.” Padraig snorted, moving back to the navigator’s position, where there was a secondary altimeter. He tapped it with a finger and it quivered briefly, but remained where it had been. “Damn!” He swore under his breath.

  “Problem?” Gorku glanced over his shoulder.

  “Maybe.” Padraig glanced out the window, and couldn’t help but wince. “What do you see?”

  Gorku squinted. “Storm clouds. They’re higher than we are, but we’ve seen that before.”

  Padraig stood frozen at the window. “Not when we were already at thirteen thousand feet. How long since you first saw the clouds on the horizon?” His foot tapped the deck. “Well?”

  The man looked up, counting. “The clouds were just on the horizon as I was coming on, half an hour ago.”

  Hansen stared at the man. “When were you going to call me?”

  “Ah.” The pilot was beginning to look scared.

  “Never mind. I’ll get Bel to navigate. You get us down. Stop at a thousand feet. Bel will be here long before you reach that level.” The pilot just stared. “DO IT!” Padraig shouted. “Now! Not when the storm’s on us.”

  “I’m hungry.” Hedric demanded in his too loud nasal voice. Padraig turned and stood perfectly still. Hedric Schwendau was standing there, hands on hips, an imperious look on his pouting face. “I’m not used to waiting on the help to deliver my breakfast.”

  Padraig eyed the outside door behind the lad with regret. “We have a small difficulty this morning, Prince Schwendau. If you would be so kind as to wait in your compartment we will attend to it without delay.” Behind Padraig, he heard Gorku make a gagging sound at the pilot’s seat.

  “Well, I suppose.” He replied in a whiny voice. “But I want fresh eggs this morning, not the usual slop you feed the crew.” He spun and stalked off, nose in the air. Padraig glared at the retreating back until it was gone. Hedric slammed the door to his cabin, and sat down on his bed to listen to the reaction.

  “We could draw straws to sees who gets the pleasure of slittin’ his little throat.” The pilot chuckled nastily.

  “Oh shut up.” Padraig replied, with no real heat.

  Bel, the navigator, arrived a few moments later and began to swear, in long inventive phrases.

  “When you get through I have a few you might not have heard.” Padraig said dryly. “We’re going to dive down to one thousand feet, pick up as much speed as we can and see if we can make the coast.”

  Glancing out the window Hedric saw nothing but dark clouds. He thought grumpily.

  “That monster storm will break up quickly once it hits land. Let’s make sure it doesn’t hit us first.” Soon the propeller was screaming, the whole airship vibrating.

  Hedric heard Tanden’s voice as he burst into the control gondola. “What the bloody…” There was a pause, and Hedric guessed that Tanden had glanced out of the window. “Oh gods…” There was awe in his voice. “I’ll go in back and start securing everything not tied down.”

  “Wake everyone if they’re not already up. Emergency stations.”

  “Surely it’s not that ba…” A crash of not-so-distant thunder shook the ship. “Never mind. What should I do with his majesty?” There was scorn in his voice
.

  “Lock him in his cabin. He’ll be safer there. No one will kill him.”

  Tanden barked a grim laugh. “Aye aye, sir.”

  Hedric screeched as they locked the door to his cabin, and began trying with all his might to kick the door down.

  Barr came back, grinning. “All secure, sir.”

  “The crew?”

  “All at stations in the front gondola, sir.”

  “Strap yourself in, Tanden. This could get a little wild.”

  The grizzled seaman laughed. “That’s what me first wife said on our weddin’ night.”

  The storm hit just as the Daedalus crossed the coast line. The first winds, coming from the stern, picked the airship up and hurled it through the air at speeds her crew had never imagined. The wind shrieked, and inside the ship items tore loose from their anchors, bouncing about the cabin like rubber balls. None of the crew heard the door of Hedric’s cabin crash open, and no one saw the weeping boy stagger to the rear gondola where he began a systematic program of destruction, smashing everything he could get his hands on. When he threw a chair through the big window, he finally got Padraig’s attention, as the wind coming through the broken window filled both cabins with its insane wail. Stumbling, Hedric watched his uncle make it as far as the doorway into the rear gondola when he threw another chair. Made strong by his hysteria, the leg barely missed the c head, but the back of the chair impacted the emergency compartment release, shattering the safety and springing the handle. The Daedalus screamed as the rear gondola tore away, and the sickening realization of what he’d done dawned in the boy’s wide scared eyes. Hedric watched Padraig standing impotently in the gondola doorway, clutching a bent stanchion. Swinging down from the body of the airship, as the emergency release was designed to do, the rear of the gondola hung there for an eternal heartbeat, before it was gone with its lone passenger, pitch-poling into the storm. Not much better, the Daedalus, freed from the massive weight of the rear gondola, shot up like a cork from a bottle and like the fallen section, was swept away by the tempest.