by Boyett, J.
They went forth toward the lake, the strangest band ever in the planet’s history so far.
Only minutes after the drones had been released, zipping along at a hundred kilometers per hour, the control panel on the arm of Dak’s suit started beeping. He raised the forearm and tapped a few of its keys with the fingers of his other hand.
Veela put her hand on the laser-blaster in her hip holster. “Did they find the zombie? Was the girl right that it went to some lake?”
“Yes,” said Dak, distractedly. After another moment’s study of the readouts, he added, “It seems the water is an effective barrier. Since they don’t need to breathe, I was worried it might simply walk into the water and float. Or sink to the bottom, or swim, for all we know. Might have made reaching it more difficult.”
Well, shit. That was something it hadn’t even occurred to Veela to worry about. “I’m glad that’s not the case,” she said. “What about the other drone? Has it reported any sightings of any other zombies? Anything to suggest there’s more than just the one?” By now the lighting-fast drone with its sensor array should have been able to do as much exploration as twenty spelunkers over the course of a month.
Dak studied the readouts a moment longer. “No,” he finally said.
Veela was sure it was only her imagination, the effect of accumulating dislike, suspicion, and frustration. But she thought she heard disappointment in Dak’s voice.
***
Chert trudged along. Never had he been so deep in a cave before, so far beyond all possibility of sunlight, but, numbed and despondent as he was, he had no will left even to feel uneasy. Not even the miraculous bauble Veela had so casually handed him, the miniature, portable sun that was cool to the touch, not even that could interest him after a while.
Since childhood he had been the strongest, smartest, and surest of his age. When this calamity had begun, it had not occurred to him that along with the end of the world had come the end of his competence. It had taken him all these days to understand that the gifts in which he had prided himself in that lost world would not transfer into this one. Gash-Eye had survived when he’d been sure she hadn’t—not that he would have cared about her for herself, but the Big-Brow slave had also managed to preserve Quarry, the only other remnant of the People. (Chert didn’t realize that she’d also killed a good many of them.) Veela, that woman he’d been so contemptuous of, had proven to be the mistress of powers far outstripping any magic he’d ever dared imagine; she couldn’t make a spear, but she was an adept doer of deeds and wielder of tools beyond the pale of dreams. To hear her and the Jaw talk, the key to it all was this “math.” To him, no matter how he concentrated, it still sounded like mere prattle; but now it was prattle that filled him, Chert the fearless, with fear.
He quickened his pace until he came alongside the Jaw, then put his hand on his son’s arm the way he’d seen the woman Veela do. Without looking at him the Jaw shook it off angrily.
Chert didn’t try to put it back. He even walked a half-pace behind the Jaw. With something like humility, he said, “I thought Gash-Eye was dead.”
The Jaw snorted. He tightened his grip on his mother’s pointed stick, which he’d taken. “The same way you thought Veela was with us, when the undead deer attacked.”
“No. That time, I simply wanted get you to safety.”
The Jaw shook his head. “I think nothing in my whole life makes me feel stupider than that I believed you.”
Chert looked at his son. The Jaw was ever so slightly taller than him. He hadn’t noticed till now, but it was true.
He said, “I was telling what I thought was the truth when I said your mother was dead. But if I’d known it was a lie, I would have said it anyway, to get you away from those undead, or no-dies, or zombies, or whatever they are. I would have sacrificed not only Gash-Eye but any other member of the People, to save you.”
“Ah. Thank you. And I suppose when you were betraying Veela and leaving her to be torn apart by no-dies, you were also doing me a favor.”
Chert’s face twisted with the effort of trying to find the right thing to say. “Do you want the woman? I won’t stand in the way. Even if I could, I wouldn’t press my claim to share her, that was only a.... She’s a powerful woman, and would be a great asset in the hunt, I’d be happy to have her with us.”
The Jaw blew air out his mouth in exasperation. He stopped, turned, and pushed his father away. Chert could have held his ground, but he allowed himself to be sent a few steps back anyhow. Veela stopped to see what was going on. A moment later Dak noticed everyone else had stopped and he did as well.
“You listen,” said the Jaw. “Veela says she doesn’t want you killed. I don’t know why—maybe she thinks you could be of some use. But know that it’s only by her pleasure that you and I are both still alive, because otherwise I would kill you or die trying. All my life I’ve been the most favored son among the People, when it interested you to make me so. All other times I was a slave as abject as my mother, nothing but a tool to seal in her torment. You shared with me just enough glory to teach me to feel shame, and so divided me from Gash-Eye; but either you couldn’t make me a real member of the band, or else you didn’t care to, so my pride served me nothing. Now the People are dead and I’m thankful. Before I kill this last no-die I’ll bless it for that one good deed its kind have done. And if you speak to me again, Chert, Quarry will be the only full-blooded member of the People left.”
The Jaw turned and stalked away. He even went past Dak, and Veela ran after him, shouting for him not to go too far alone.
Soon the little group started moving again. Chert noticed that Veela kept looking over her shoulder at him, as if to make sure he was still following them and hadn’t just stopped, or wandered off. Dimly, he wondered what he must look like for her to be so worried. He didn’t bother making eye contact with her, he simply trudged along, brooding; he couldn’t see any reason why he should ever leave this cave again.
His gaze drifted up to the back of the strange and unbelievable shell covering Dak, like the shell that protected an insect but infinitely harder. No matter what size he was, the little man always needed his protective coverings. Chert’s eyes narrowed. If there was one thing he could still be sure of, he reflected, it was that he’d sworn to kill that little man.
***
As they approached the lakeshore, Dak seemed amused as well as annoyed by Veela’s increasing nervousness. “I know exactly where the zombie is,” he told her, tapping the readouts on his arm panel, which nobody but him had seen, because the drones’ data was streaming back only to the hydraulic frame’s computer. “It’s remaining basically stationary. I’ll let you know when we’re closing in, there’s no danger.”
Veela thought that was an easy thing to say for a guy wearing a tank.
Dak’s sentacles grabbed two rocks in passing and began to juggle them. Veela stared. “Isn’t it a huge energy-drain to use those things like that?”
“I do have to practice, Veela. Should anything happen, I need to be certain I can manipulate these tools with complete control.” After a moment he had the sentacles quietly place the stones on the cave floor again. All the while they continued to walk.
Both of them wore visors. The transparent screens covered their faces and displayed readouts before their pupils, so that when Chert or the Jaw faced the two time-travelers, they saw the readouts in reverse. Veela had hers down and set for night vision, though she shone a flashlight before them for the sake of the two guys. She’d considered grabbing a pair of visors for Chert and the Jaw, but she knew those things would freak the guys out. She paused, using her glance controls to search for any anomalies ahead.
And she could see it, in the distance. A human-shaped heat source, but the wrong temperature for a human—way too cool. With the glance controls she had the visor run a few more diagnostics. Yep, that was definitely a zombie. The last fucking zombie—at least, it had better be. She pulled her laser-blaster out, clicked
off the safety, and pointed it at the zombie’s head—the visor’s targeting app locked in. “Gotcha, cocksucker,” she said.
“Hang on, Veela,” said Dak. “Don’t be hasty.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
She pulled it again, and again nothing happened. Again and again and again, and still nothing.
“What the fuck,” she gasped.
“I had a feeling you might be hasty. So I ordered your laser’s CPU not to fire without authorization from me.”
“Dak, oh my God, if this is to conserve energy....”
The zombie had heard them, either their voices or their brainsong, or both. In her visor she could see it quivering to life, and slowly moving their way. Dak strode to meet it, confident in his armor. Veela scrambled along beside him, pleading: “Fuck the batteries, Dak! Who cares if we wind up having to hunt pigs with spears the rest of our lives? Can’t you see that our one and only fucking purpose is to kill these fucking zombies that we brought back with us in the first place?!”
“Veela, please. I could survive here without you, except that I confess to a psychological need for a contemporary, someone at least theoretically capable of the breadth of vision one should expect from someone of our century. Can’t you see that this zombie is the very apex of human scientific thought?”
“It’s the apex because it’s the last thing we invented, and it was the last thing we invented because it killed us.”
“Well, actually, time travel was the last. But Veela, even you must be awestruck that, with the zombie, we humans have created immortality. The bulk of the work is done—all that remains are the kinks.”
“No, Dak, you can’t keep this thing and study it. You’ll fuck up and it’ll get loose.”
“I will not ‘fuck up’!” he said, affronted. “By studying the process of cthuloid fluid generation, I can perfect the serum and live forever, or at least until you and I destroy the universe—and who knows, perhaps I’ll even figure out a way to avoid that.”
“What are you going to do to cause the cthuloid fluid generation? Feed it the brains of Stone Age people?”
“Well, yes. They certainly are plentiful enough.”
“And when are you going to start this brilliant experiment?”
“I have the frame’s computer set up to begin right away. I think I may be on the verge of figuring out what the original gengineers did wrong; one cthuloid spurt could be all I need. Of course, it could take a thousand, one never knows.”
“Jesus—it wasn’t just that you were distracted by building the perimeter wall—you wanted all those people to get zombified, didn’t you? So you’d have more subjects!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Though it is true that I judged my priority to be containment. Since, yes, I did know that I would eventually require subjects, anyhow.”
“Did you know there was a zombie mouse in the hold? Did you plan for it all starting again, just under more controlled circumstances? You never had any intention of destroying all the zombies, did you? The whole farce of making the contagion look like an accident was only to placate me, to keep me docile, because you need me to translate....”
“Well, actually, I’m perfectly capable of devising translation software that can....”
“You need me to translate to your test subjects, so you can manipulate them better! That’s the only reason you’ve been bothering with me at all, was so I could be your fucking kapo!”
“This is a dangerous world, Veela, and our power stores will run out. There’s no time to lose in finding a path to immortality.”
Veela grabbed the suit, held it as tightly as she could and dug in her heels. The suit continued to walk as if she weren’t there at all. The soles of her shoes scraped the rock floor. In her visor she saw they were about to meet the zombie. She screamed in rage.
Dak sighed. “I should have rescued someone else,” he said.
“You sure should’ve, you bastard,” she said, and leaped for his exposed face and chest. The sentacles easily fended her off, picking her up and tossing her into the gloom.
***
“Veela!” shouted the Jaw, who had been bewildered and terrified by the confrontation between her and Dak. In an instant, he figured out exactly how to use the flashlight—he ran it back and forth, scanning the cave, till he found her prone form on the rock floor—then he kept it trained on her as he ran to her side.
Behind him he heard Chert shout in amazement. Once he’d reached Veela and confirmed she was still alive, he turned to see what was going on. Dak was grappling easily with a no-die. Though the thing writhed and hissed, the new body Dak wore held it with no effort, far enough from Dak’s face that the thing could do no harm. That was incredible, but the Jaw turned his attention back to Veela.
She was dazed, but breathing, and stirring. The Jaw lifted her head and rested it upon his knees. “Hush ... hush....” he murmured, stroking her hair, keeping one ear out in case that no-die got loose from Dak.
Veela was struggling to say something. Finally, she managed: “Dak—he feeds the brains of your friends to the no-die ... he feeds it your friends....”
She had to repeat it again before the Jaw understood. Then he looked back, at Dak and the no-die, and Quarry and Gash-Eye bundled on Dak’s back. “Mother!” he roared, and sprang to his feet. “Mother!” he roared again.
***
Gash-Eye was at the bottom of a shaking dark electric cloud. Though she couldn’t be called happy—her delirium was filled with terrors and sickness—she was nevertheless on some level grateful for being warm and at rest.
From somewhere she heard the Jaw screaming “Mother! Mother!,” and opened her eyes.
She didn’t know where she was. Above her was a white something, a white bundle. Now she remembered having seen Quarry wrapped up in such a bundle, though she didn’t know how Quarry could be floating above her.
Again she heard the Jaw scream. Though she couldn’t know it, the Jaw’s words were directed to his father: “He’s going to give them to the no-die! Quarry and Gash-Eye!”
Quarry.
***
Dak spent a few moments planning out how he would move things around. Four of his sentacles were focused on keeping the zombie at a safe distance, and four were on the lookout for attacks by the primitives and the linguist. That left only the three already holding her free for picking up the primitive child, lifting her overhead, and feeding her brain to the zombie. He quickly figured out the energy-optimal choreography for those actions.
He scanned through a gamut of readings on the zombie, displayed on his visor. Once he fed the girl’s brain to the zombie, he could expect the cthuloid production to generate a huge spike in the zombie’s strength and energy. But that shouldn’t endanger him; the frame was so incredibly dense and strong that nothing biological could hope to move it, unless it had the body mass of about a dozen elephants—and nothing on this world could hope to tear it open. Still, to be safe he increased the power level being diverted to the sentacles holding the zombie.
Less than four feet away the black zombie’s wide eyes stared in his direction, blinded by the floodlights; it gnashed and snapped its jaws at Dak’s face behind the thin visor, instinctively smelling the skull-muffled song of his brain. Dak eyed the creature impassively—the armor frame protected him more than adequately, and the zombie was merely a natural phenomenon. Or an unnatural one, depending on one’s definition.
Using the glance controls, Dak had the sentacles lift the girl and begin unwrapping the thermablanket. She was on top, so for the first experiment he would use her. Besides, Dak thought he might get richer and more productive results with a Cro-Magnon brain, than with a Neanderthal one.
***
Gash-Eye heard still more screams, and forced herself to wake up. Or to wake up as much as she could, anyway. Suddenly the bundle above her, the one that she thought was Quarry, was rising. Or she thought it was
rising; her vision was funny, it was hard to be sure of anything.
She heard that strange woman who had been with her son try to scream and fail; or maybe she did scream something, and Gash-Eye couldn’t understand it.
She felt that the Jaw was somewhere and that he had, somehow, told her that Quarry was going to be fed to one of those things that the strange woman had called no-dies. And there above her the bundle that might be Quarry was being lifted away from her, by something.
Gash-Eye had no strength to move with, but she moved anyway, and quickly. She found herself tied up in some sort of hide, and when she looked down she saw that it was bright white like whatever Quarry was wrapped up in. It was impossible to tear, but Gash-Eye wriggled till she was able to work her arms a bit loose, then thrashed free. It turned out to be one large sheet of skin, or of something.
She threw it off and stood up; she didn’t understand that she was on a raised platform, nor did she quite register just how impossibly regular and flat the floor beneath her was. There was a big hard thing right in front of her, and on the other side of it were the weirdly bright, white light sources she was seeing by. Quarry was being lifted up and over the something in front of her by some sort of creatures: snakes made of some sort of opaque crystal, to judge by the way they glinted in the weird light.
With a roar of rage and effort she snatched the Quarry-bundle from the crystal snakes. She didn’t have the strength to keep hold of the girl and keep her balance; so all she could do was drop the bundle back the way she’d come, with a silent prayer that it would land safely. Once the bundle was gone she saw that on the other side of the thing she was clambering over was an unkillable.
That was the unkillable that was trying to eat Quarry’s brain. There was no time to search for a rock, or any weapon at all. With another roar, she threw herself at the creature.
Echoing through the darkness she heard Chert’s voice, crying, “Gash-Eye!” Though confused, she still knew she had a fever, and that that voice couldn’t be real. Dimly, she thought Chert was an odd choice for the trickster fever spirits to impersonate. But she was too busy to ponder that mystery.