"Smooth ... even ... breaths," Cinnamon said approvingly. "Don't hyperventilate and get dizzy." She had moved back to her place at the patient's chest and continued the steady pressure pulses to Shirley's chest. Adrenaline had left Reiki in a dreamlike state and it seemed perfectly sensible that Cinnamon was pacing her efforts by singing almost silently to herself, "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun ..." while Reiki continued with her task. Breathe, listen ... breathe, listen ...
John was making quick work. He sliced deeply into Shirley's belly and blood welled up around his knife. He then moved more slowly, the small permalight held in his mouth so that he could see into the incision. The knife clattered onto the floor as John reached in with both hands and pulled the baby free, lying still in his hands. Reiki kept at her task. Breathe, listen ... breathe, listen ...
John quickly turned the child over, draining the fluid from its nose and mouth. He was rubbing its chest and breathing into its blue lips. His breathing was a staccato counterpoint to her own breathing with its mother. Breathe, listen ... puff, puff, puff ... breathe, listen ... puff, puff, puff ...
Then the baby coughed. John straightened and smiled grimly as the baby began to cry raggedly. Cinnamon touched Reiki on the shoulder. "You can stop now," she said gently.
"But ..." said Reiki. "Why are you stopping? Now that the baby is safe, can't John use the drugs, the paddles ..."
Slowly Reiki realized that John had not done anything for Shirley, no attempt to clamp the bleeding, no concern with the size of the wound, nothing. She pushed up the makeshift blood-soaked turban that covered Shirley's eyes and head, and was appalled at what she saw. Gently, Reiki reached out and closed the soft blue eyes that stared blankly at nothing and replaced the cloth to cover the devastation. She didn't ask what had caused such a vicious wound. It didn't matter if it had been falling wood, or the swipe of a bearlike claw, or the bite of a sharklike mouth, all that mattered was that one of them—one of her family—had died. She used some sarongs to shroud the rest of the body.
Cinnamon had wrapped up the baby and was quieting it. "You have another son, John."
"Yes, and my last, if I have anything to say about it. It hurts too much. I want to grieve for the loss of a friend, but I am too busy cutting her up trying to save my son ..." He began to sob and retch. Frantically he stepped out into the darkness. Outside, the thunder and lightning had continued inland. The rain still fell heavily, but the main body of the storm had moved on. Reiki rubbed John's neck while he emptied himself of his despair.
"What kind of man am I? How did I ever manage to end up at this point in my life? What could I have done?" he whispered.
"You are just a man, John. Violence and sudden death can happen anywhere," replied Reiki soothingly.
"What were those monsters? Why didn't we know about them? Why weren't we prepared?"
"No one could have been prepared for that. We all just do the best we can. But burying yourself in self-pity and whys' and what ifs' is not going to help that young child in there. You have a young Caesar, and he is going to need all of us."
"All of us. We all need all of us. And now one of us is gone."
"Yes," said Cinnamon, joining them. She placed the baby in his arms. "But now there is a new one of us."
John couldn't see the baby's face, but he could feel the warmth and the wiggle as the baby turned its head toward him looking for a breast. "Poor lamb. I have nothing to feed you. Reiki? I know you were trying to wean your daughter but ..."
"Not to worry. Between us we can wet-nurse this little one."
"Thank you. But not Caesar, I think. We needn't be reminded of his mother's death every time we call his name. Let him carry his mother's name. We'll call him Everett."
Together they made their way up to Carmen's cliff-top home. Inside the small hut, all the children were sitting, wide eyed and silent, watching.
"Nels?" asked Cinnamon, looking around.
"He and David and Jinjur have gone to see where those beasts are going," said Richard. "And to find out where they came from."
"And to see the Jollys. To warn them," said Carmen. Maria was tugging on her mother's curly hair, trying to get her attention. She wanted permission to see the baby.
"Somehow I doubt the Jollys need warning. They have been hinting for months that there are Demonfish, now I guess we will remember to take what they say more literally."
The next two hours passed in silence. Even the children were subdued as they clung to their parents. The rain had stopped and dawn was just breaking when Jinjur burst into the hut.
"Piscatorial pickerels! That was some battle!" said Jinjur grimly as she entered the room. Even in the weak light it was clear that she was covered in blood.
"My God, Jinjur!" said John, passing the baby to Carmen and Maria. "Are you all right? Where are you wounded?"
"Oh, I might have a few scratches, but most of this blood isn't mine. Nels and David are following me up and they are okay, too. Nels sprained his ankle, so David is helping him ... Cinnamon if you want to go ..." She looked around the hut.
"She left the minute you walked in," John said.
"Yeah, she always knows where she's needed." She sat down heavily. "Pontifical penguins, I'm beat. I just wanted to report that the Demonfish are gone and they won't be back. At least not for another five years. Why don't we all just take a few hours to clean up and to settle the children? Then we can go back to what's left of the Meeting Hall and tell each other our stories."
There was a long silence. Then John said, "Jinjur, come on outside. There is something I need to tell you."
REIKI sank down in Richard's lap and pulled her children tightly around her. She was shaking uncontrollably as the fear-fed energy of the terror-filled night drained away, leaving only emptiness. Outside she knew that the sky was growing brighter and a woman's heart was breaking.
When the time for the midday meal came the next day, Jinjur did not join the others. She had decided that she wanted to be the one to feed Everett and had gone down into the submerged lander to get the necessary hormone shots to replenish her milk. Adam had only been weaned a few months ago, so her milk would be easy to reestablish. Besides, the long walk to the beach and the time she spent away from the others would give the general a chance to grieve privately. Nels, too, stayed away from the gathering. His ankle was badly sprained and he was staying home.
All things considered, the damage to the village was minimal. The carcass of one of the monsters filled the shadows by the sick bay where John would dissect it later in the day. The Meeting Hall was razed, but the central chimney was still standing and the stones that supported the flooring were still in place. They had three months until the daily rains returned and by then they would have the roof restored. Reiki and Richard's home had been completely destroyed, as had the bridge that crossed the stream, but the rest of the dwellings had not been touched. Some of the Earth crops were lost, but Shirley was the only loss that they took to heart.
Instead of meeting at the wreckage of the Meeting Hall, the rest of the castaways gathered at Carmen's home on the hill. David wanted to tell them all what had happened after they followed the attacking Demonfish, and he wanted everyone, even those on board Prometheus, to hear his tale. Carmen set up three-way contact between the settlement, the spaceship, and the underwater console used by the flouwen. Those aboard Prometheus would have to cope with a delay of several minutes, but as the questions would wait until the end, this shouldn't affect them too much.
After such a shocking experience, none of the parents wanted the children to be out of reach, but they didn't necessarily want them to hear about the violence. Arielle volunteered to watch the children as they played outside the hut. Carmen passed around bulbs of juice that she spiked with wine. After the sleepless night she thought that they all needed to relax. Once everyone was settled, David took the floor.
"Once I knew that Arielle and Shannon were safely here on the hill, I looked ar
ound to see who else followed Jinjur's voice. She let me know that everyone was accounted for, although she didn't say anything at the time about Shirley ... well. She had taken one of the permalights that Carmen had been charging up here in the sunlight and was using short bursts of light to illuminate the valley. It was obvious that the beasts, whatever they were, had some sense of the light. If she held the beam still for any length of time, they would definitely turn toward it. The lightning seemed to confuse them.
"The main body of the herd had already moved upstream before she and Nels and I were ready to move. Jinjur had her bow and the heavy arrows, and the three of us each took the sharpest mattocks we could find from the farm implement shed. One of the smaller beasts seemed to have lost its sense of direction and was thrashing around in the middle of the village for quite some time. Later we learned that was the beast Reiki tackled. The sounds of its dying made it easy to avoid.
"God knows the creatures were easy enough to follow even in the rain. The smell alone, like a dead whale in the sun, would have led us to them if they hadn't left so clear a trail. They have no rear legs, just their long fat bodies that they drag over the ground behind them. If the tail helps them move at all, I didn't see any sign of it. Instead of galomphing along like a seal on a beach, these animals moved their front legs one at a time, digging their long black claws into the ground and pulling themselves forward."
Here David held up his own two hands imitating the creatures claws and pawed at the air slowly, methodically. "Scrunch, scrunch, the sounds of their claws on the rocks as they marched up the riverbed could be heard above the sounds of the storm.
"It was clear that they were heading for the upland lakes.
"When we got to the lakes, we found the Jollys there. They were all painted with streaks of white reflective paint marking each trunk with long vertical strokes that made them easy to see even in the feeble light. All the stronglimb warriors were there, and all of them were quiet, staring down at the churning lake.
"Jinjur greeted Seetoo. 'We have met your Demonfish,' she said. 'We feared you would,' Seetoo replied. 'But you didn't heed us. I hoped that as time passed you would understand us better, but you have no eye nipples. You can not absorb the proper information. The Demonfish are indeed fearsome, but now is the time for warriors to bravely face the fearsome ones.' Seetoo gestured toward the lake. The normally clear lake seemed polluted as if by the noxious odor of the creatures. The lake's water was clouded with mud and foam as the huge beasts thrashed in the depths. The placid lake-fish were struggling to escape the frenzied feeding of the Demonfish. During a flash of lightning I watched as one of the monsters opened its mouth and swallowed one of the lake-fish whole. I swear, it was one of the largest lake-fish I have ever seen and it swallowed that fish whole! Then Seetoo said, 'These Demonfish have always been the enemies of my people. They come into our land, uprooting seedlings, destroying anything that stands in their way. They kill the fish in the lake, gorging themselves on our food. It is only fitting that the flesh of the Demonfish should be used to feed our young.' Seetoo went on to tell of how the monsters had killed many of his ancestors. Every generation had lost stronglimbs to the Demonfish attacks. The creatures would blindly destroy the Jolly's strongest buildings, and they would eat so many of the lake-fish that it was common to find still-living lake-fish in the mouths of slaughtered Demonfish. Over the generations the Jollys were forced to abandon their best lands to the ravages of the Demonfish, like this very valley we are now in. But the Jollys don't allow the monsters free rein. They cannot prevent the creatures from reaching the lake, but once the beasts are glutted on their kill, they become sluggish. As they try to leave the lake and get back to the sea, they have to pass back through this valley and here they take their vengeance.
"Jinjur asked if we humans could help in the battle. 'I am a warrior among my people and have fought many battles. These Demonfish have hurt my lifemate. They have hurt me. I would deem it an honor if you let me fight at your side.' 'It is we who would be honored,' Seetoo replied. For a moment I wondered if it really was our fight—if we should be getting involved in a battle where we didn't even know the rules. It's not our planet ... why should we get into the middle of a war that goes five years between battles? But then I realized that, like it or not, this is our planet. My daughter is a native of Eden. The Jollys are kind and intelligent, and if they believe there is a need to fight off these ugly stinking beasts, then I was willing to trust their assessment of the situation.
"It was the weirdest battle I have ever witnessed. The Demonfish pulled themselves out of the water and marched slowly back down toward us. They now moved noticeably slower and their huge heads were kept low to the ground. Water streamed from the long rank ropes of hair covering them and the run-off stank as badly as the creatures themselves. If they have eyes at all under that disgusting mop, they didn't seem to use them, but just moved steadily downstream toward the sea.
"The Jollys' method of attack was equally methodical. The stronglimbs attacked in their slow ponderous way, carefully judging the approach of the Demonfish with their intercepting advance. A sharp spear would be planted just in front of a monster. If the stronglimb lost courage and moved away too soon, the spear would fall harmlessly and the Demonfish would crawl right over it. If the Jolly stayed too long, he risked being mauled by the beasts' savage claws. But I saw Seetoo, with perfect timing, impale several of the giant creatures, stepping carefully just out of range of the frenzied thrashing of the wounded beast.
"Once wounded, the Demonfish could not escape the wrath of the Jollys. Several of the animals escaped without harm, but those that were pierced with the initial spears had no hope of survival. Once the wounded creature was slowed by pain and exhaustion, the entire village fell upon it. Sharp blackglass dirks held in a firm root-foot allowed the Jolly to keep its balance while still striking down on its victim with its full weight. By the time they were through with a Demonfish, it was a punctured and slashed hulk.
"Jinjur watched how the Jollys fought for a moment, and then started in on the Demonfish with her bow. The long moplike hair stopped most of her arrows, and even the heaviest arrows did little damage. Her wet sarong stuck to her skin and she pulled it off and threw it into the mud. Then she snatched up one of the spears lying on the ground and dashed into the melee. Nels and I followed our valiant leader into the thick of the battle. My memory after this point is not as clear. I don't remember feeling afraid, although the thought scares me now. I don't remember thinking clearly, although my body acted sensibly. I only know that things were happening all around me, and that I acted and reacted.
"I remember seeing Jinjur plant a spear and hold it as a Demonfish bore down on her. At the last second she ducked and rolled away as it came down hard on the spear. It rolled away from the pain of the wound, still maintaining that alien silence, right toward me. I planted my own spear and it rolled directly onto it. I remember the hot sticky blood and the rotting smell of the rough wet hair. The Jollys, white streaks making them look more threatening in the flashes of lightning, surrounded me and I ducked out from between their legs, as afraid of an accidental sweep of their blackglass dirks as I was of the claws of the Demonfish.
"I risked shining the light of my torch into the chaos around me, looking for Nels and Jinjur. The General had climbed up onto the back of one of the monsters, and as I watched she plunged a blackglass dirk she had found deep into the back of the monster's head. The huge creature reared and opened its mouth in a silent scream and, I swear, I saw one of the lake-fish in its mouth. The fish fell free and thrashed out the rest of its life on the stones at my feet.
"The mortally wounded Demonfish was still bucking and rolling. Jinjur judged its wild tossing like a rodeo cowboy and jumped free just as it rolled completely over onto its back. She landed like a dancer on the slippery wet stones, but the Demonfish kept on rolling, its huge body about to crush her in its death throes. Then Nels came out of nowhere, covered in De
monfish blood and screaming a warning. He tackled Jinjur and the two of them went down beside a large river rock. The Demonfish continued its roll right over them and for a moment I thought they both had been lost. Then they stood and I realized that the stone had sheltered them from the monster's crushing weight, except for Nels's ankle.
"By now the bulk of the Demonfish had left the lake. The Jollys had brought down more than a dozen of them and were finishing them off with daggers and stones. Filled with battle lust they were almost as frightening as the Demonfish. Nels was limping, making his way up the hill and away from the slaughter. I moved to help him and then I looked back after Jinjur. She was wiping clean the grip of her dirk and moving purposefully after the next Demonfish. I called to her. 'Jinjur! Come on! The Jollys aren't chasing them any farther!' 'That's because the Jollys can't chase them downstream into the surf!' she called back, blood lust and determination making her voice sound deep and hoarse. 'You can't fight them in the ocean!' I called, appalled at the thought of these huge creatures fighting in the freedom of their own element. 'Not I,' she called back. 'The flouwen!'
"Nels and I made our way to the Keejook village to see if the Jollys needed any help with the wounded and then we came back home. On the way back we met Jinjur and we all came in together, Jinjur cursing the flouwen the whole way back. Apparently, they had been off surfing and never saw the Demonfish at all."
David sat back and drank deeply from his glass. Visions of the battle still filled his head. Soon, soon, he would be able to get back to his hut, back to where he could surround himself with the love and safety of his wife and daughter. Then he would be able to exorcise the Demonfish with his paintbrush, freeing his mind by trapping the visions on canvas.
HEARING
GNASA Administrator Fred Ross was dropped off at the elevator in the Rayburn House Office Building parking garage by his robocar. He was running late and was relieved to see that Chairman John "Hooter" Ootah was in the robocar behind him. The meeting wouldn't start until the chairman got there.
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