by Ivan Cat
Karr swallowed hard. A whole new set of muscles was exposed and therefore an unknown set of qi points. Karr circled the engine nozzles, trying to deduce the qi meridians. A layer of flexor muscles lay over a layer of extensor muscles. Good. Karr wanted the flexors. A shot in the correct location would constrict all four nozzles and shut off the thrust. That in turn would cause Long Reach to dampen its internal fire. Closer inspection showed Karr that these muscles were not so different from the outer hull muscles he was familiar with. Encouraged, he set the Gattler for long, permanent needles; Karr wanted the orifices to shut and stay shut.
That should be the spot. Karr aimed at a point nearly centered amidst the four engine nozzles. Unless he was badly miscalculating the new meridian... no. The point was tricky to locate, but Karr was right.
He shot.
The living pistons contracted under his boots, pulling unseen plates of heat-resistant bone across the nozzles and the pillars of engine thrust constricted. However, unlike the external muscles Karr was used to, which responded slowly and predictably, the inner-hull groups reacted vigorously, clamping down in a fraction of the anticipated time. The thrust nozzles sagged. The fiery columns of exhaust sagged with them, like the petals of a titanic, wilting flower.
Unbalanced thrust began to tip Long Reach over. A mass of bubbles exploded to the ocean surface from below, presumably from one of the many openings Karr had seen. Escaping air meant water was rushing into the hull, further complicating matters.
Long Reach began to sink, rolling ponderously, twisting downward, its oily hull disappearing under vibrating water.
Alarmed, Karr dropped to hands and knees and grabbed the head of the qi needle, but his gloves were slick and he could not get it out. Karr struggled with locking rings on his wrists, intending to pull his gloves off and grab the needle with bare flesh. However, his hands were saved from hideous burns by a convulsion, which suddenly rippled every muscle on the ship from the surface of the waves all the way up to its top.
Karr lost his balance and his grip and tumbled down the side. Arms and legs skipped off slippery surfaces. The kilnsuit froze, plates locking up at each impact. The ocean surface rushed at him, frothing and bubbling as it pulled Long Reach under. Karr bounced the last stretch and splashed hard into the water, holding the Gattler for dear life, bubbles whirling around his helmet. It was hard to tell which way was up. Karr was spun and jostled in the turmoil near the descending fugueship hull. He had to get away or be sucked down with it, but his outboard thruster was gone and he could not swim in the bulky suit. The end over end motion was making him sick. With few other options, Karr activated the kilnsuit's maneuvering thrusters, punching them at full power. Uncontrolled thrust yanked his arms and legs to the end of their sockets; Karr broke through the boiling surface, feet flipping into the air. He cartwheeled right over before landing head up and bobbing on the turbulent surface.
Long Reach's stern was half gone. The pillars of engine thrust were diminishing in size and force, and sagging down at the ocean surface. One of the petals was sagging right down at Karr! He would be incinerated. Karr thumbed the thrusters again. This time the backpack kicked him in the small of his back, and he plowed across frothing water like a rag doll skipping behind a speedboat. Karr crossed the space between fugueship and heavy lifter before he knew it. The hovering craft loomed up fast. Ten yards, three yards, one yard. Karr killed the thrusters and reached up. No good! He needed longer arms. Either that or he should have thought to extend one of the lifter's robotic grappling arms before he set out, because he couldn't reach any part of the orbiter.
Jenette solved the problem for him. The lifter suddenly splashed down, nearly crushing Karr. He bounced down off the hull, briefly sinking underwater, but then bobbing back up and grabbing hands that reached down at him. Thrusters pushed; both humans pulled as hard as they could, together managing to heave Karr over the lifter's shallow sidewalls.
Karr rolled to his feet, muscles complaining. He lumbered for the cockpit while unlocking and removing his helmet.
"Got to get out of here!" Jenette yelled, pointing up at a column of fire that was sagging their way. It was far thinner than last time Karr had looked, almost sealed off in fact, but would still do great harm to the heavy lifter and its occupants.
Karr clambered into the cockpit and worked the controls, raising the lifter off of the water and side slipping neatly between two of the wilting columns. Fiery exhaust hit the water with a great hiss as Long Reach disappeared from view, but the conflagration was not extinguished. The boiling bubbles increased a hundredfold as seawater rushed over the exposed superconductor end. Hellfire glowed underwater as the fugueship sank. As the heavy lifter's engines spooled up, the force of gasses bubbling up from below became so strong that Karr felt a strong updraft buffeting the hull. Curlicues of fire appeared here and there, erupting high into the air like miniature solar flares.
The lifter engines reached full pressure. Karr hauled up on the throttle and twisted the steering yoke hard over. "Take cover!" The lifter rose, turning tail and accelerating away.
Jenette crouched under her reflective blanket as the ocean surface burst open under them, a gout of flame hammering skyward. Unlike Long Reach's fusion exhaust, this fire was not confined to four narrow columns, but expanded on contact with the atmosphere—a wall of fugueship vengeance roaring into the sky, swelling wider and wider and eating up everything in its path. A wave of stifling heat hit the lifter.
Karr was already at maximum power. All he could do was angle the lifter to surf the pressure wave that expanded in front of the thundering inferno. The encircling fog bank was blown away in an instant. Smoldering island fragments were swept up and vaporized. The fire on the lifter's tail grew brighter and brighter, gaining; the dashboard in front of Karr glowed red beside the shadow of his head. He tipped the lifter's stern up, hoping to shield himself and Jenette with the hull.
The fury washed over them. Fire swamped the lifter on all sides. Only a tiny patch of blue sky remained ahead, as if they were looking up from the bottom of a deep flaming well. Fingers of the flame licked over the lifter's sidewalls. Jenette screamed as, for one horrible moment, the dot of blue sky was gone. Unrelenting heat sucked the air out of their lungs and seared Karr's exposed head. He clenched his eyes shut as the tremendous force tried to flip the lifter over; even closed, the insides of his eyelids were white hot.
"Sonofabitch!" he swore, fighting the controls.
And then the inside of his eyelids dimmed. He could breathe again. Cool air rushed across Karr's face and he opened his eyes. The lifter had shot out of the wall of fire, singed, but unhurt. Jenette peeked out from under her blanket.
"We're alive?" she asked, incredulous.
Karr was afraid to look back, but he leveled the hull anyway.
A new column of flame burned in place of Long Reach's comparatively tiny exhausts. Kiloyards wide at sea level, the firestorm reached thousands of feet into the daytime sky, disappearing into clouds turned luminescent by its brilliance.
The ocean was on fire.
"My God," Karr whispered. "What have I done?"
XVIII
The proto-man lies before her. She removes his generic gray clothes. She opens the lock on his head, removes and places his boy-mind in a jar by the headboard, twisting the lid up tight. It must not get out. It is the boy-brain that holds the man-body back. The body alone is enough. Masculine, like a rocking-hross, like one she had as a child. A toy.
For her to play with.
She explores the man-body as she once explored the rocking-hross, feeling every smooth flank, every firm curve. It does not move. It might be dead. Except for the heat. She shivers at the diabolical thrill.
Suddenly her clothes are off, like a young girl that doesn't know any better. The woman straddles the man-toy as the girl once straddled the rocking-hross. But girl play is far from her thoughts. She leans forward. Her breasts touch it. Her nipples harden. Unfettered by the boy
-brain, the man-body rises to the occasion, and hardens, as the rocking-hross seat was hard.
As she sat on the rocking-hross, she sits on it.
And rides. She and the man-toy. How they rock, how they buck. She does not seek end to the game, it sneaks up on her, as the end of girl-games snuck up on her. She's it. Home free. Rubber and glue, bounces off her and sticks to youuuuu....
The girl is gone.
The woman dresses.
But she takes care of her man-toy. Cleans it. Feeds it. Clothes it in white, the color of true love. And hopes one day to find a man-brain to put in its empty head.
—from the black book of J. Tesla
Jenette worried about Karr. His face and neck were red and blistering, his short dark hair singed into tight curls and, more disconcertingly, he did not pay attention to his flying or to her, but stared backward at the inferno like a hole-wompet hypnotized by Khafra hunting patterns.
"But... how?" he mumbled to no one in particular.
Except for her fingertips, which had protruded out from under the protective blanket and now throbbed painfully, Jenette was unhurt. She stepped into Karr's line of sight. "Do you have a medipak?"
Karr wasn't listening. He leaned to look around her. "How...? Water doesn't burn."
Jenette gently grabbed his shoulders and forced him to look at her. "New Ascension to Lindal Karr. Do you have a medipak?"
"It doesn't burn, you know," Karr emphasized. "It's a very stable molecule."
"I'm sure it is. Where's the medipak?"
Jenette's patience ran thin. She was about to yell at Karr when his hands went to his face. "What have I done?" he groaned. Bits of his face flesh sloughed away where he touched it. He didn't feel it.
Jenette realized Karr was in shock. "Stop the lifter," she commanded with as much authority in her voice as she could muster. "Put us down. Now."
Like a robot in need of a recharge, Karr slowly turned to face forward and lowered the throttle. The lifter floated down. Jenette tensed, but her fear was misplaced; dazed though he was, Karr brought them down with only a small bump on hitting the water.
"Turn everything off," Jenette said, "and stay put."
Karr methodically switched power off. The thrusters wound down.
Jenette hurried back through the salvage littering the deck. Recent events had scattered it, but she easily located and focused on the ejector couch and the survival raft; they were the most likely places to discover emergency supplies. The couch was a disappointment, so she turned to the raft, unzipping its conical awning. The interior was damp. The awning was designed to condense moisture on its inner surface; fresh water dribbled down gutters into catch pouches around the bottom. Jenette crawled in, arms and legs squeaking against rubbery surfaces, sucked a quick drink from a flexible hose as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and then grabbed a case emblazoned with a red cross.
Karr was still staring at the firestorm when she returned, but at least he acknowledged her existence. "Burn packs inside," he mumbled, seeing the case. "Open pack, load beads, spray... spray...." Karr lost his train of thought.
"I can read," Jenette said, nose crinkling as she dutifully followed instructions on a sealed packet, first cleansing her own hands with sterile cream, then removing strips of hanging flesh from Karr's face. Next, beads of medical dressing went into a pump applicator and she sprayed the resulting foam onto Karr's wounds.
Jenette regarded her handiwork. Karr's head was a pink cake, iced with white frosting.
He reached for the medipak. "Now the powerbuds," he mumbled on, "to activate the healing. One on each side, for a current flow."
Jenette snatched the medipak away. "Sit still and close your eyes, firebug. I can handle it."
She immediately regretted her choice of words, because Karr did shut up, but he also resumed staring at the conflagration behind them. She pushed two pinheads out of a blister pack and inserted them into the icing on Karr's head. They ignited on contact. Jenette felt a cool tingling expand from the powerbuds, turning the white dressing into transparent goo, like melted wax.
"Ahh," Karr sighed.
Jenette smeared the dressing around, the sting easing from her own burned fingers as she worked. "These are good," she commented, reading the package. Remodels first and second degree burns in minutes, it bragged. Allow longer for third degree burns, checking frequently. Jenette stood watch to make sure the powerbuds did not slip, leaving her fingers in contact so that they could also heal. Not only did the medicinal current calm the throbbing of her burns, but there was a certain thrill in touching an adult male this way—a sweet stolen thrill. With the exception of the ancients, all post-pubescent males that she came into physical contact with inevitably fled in terror, so this was a novel sensation. After about five minutes, the redness on Karr's face began to fade.
The goo around his mouth parted. "Current flow," he repeated. Then two more breaks formed in the goo and his eyes popped open. "Electrolysis!"
"Excuse me?" said Jenette, puzzled.
"Electrolysis," Karr repeated. "The splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen by electric current. The superconductor is broken."
"What superconductor?" Jenette said, more puzzled than before.
"The one Long Reach uses to generate its ramfield—oops, used," Karr corrected. Jenette watched thought processes on his gooey face. "The superconductor is broken into an anode and a cathode," he explained, "like the poles on a powerpak. Current could not move when Long Reach was floating ... but now that both poles are underwater—salt water, with all those electrolytes—" the goo-head blinked, "—all that energy is flowing between the poles, electrolyzing the ocean water into hydrogen and oxygen. That's what's burning. Not the ocean."
"It's electrolyzing a lot of water," Jenette said, looking back. Two kiloyards distant, the flames still blotted out a huge portion of the sky.
"Fugueship fusion produces an exceptional quantity of power," Karr admitted glumly. "Which equates to a lot of fire." He moaned. "It's all my fault. How am I ever going to put it out?"
"Calm down," Jenette ordered. "You screwed up. But if your ship is alive now, it will still be alive tomorrow. In fact, as long as that tire's burning we know it's still alive. Right? Otherwise no electrolysis, no fuel and the fire goes out. We have to get to a safe place, rethink, and come back with a plan, but first you have to shut up and heal."
"Right," Karr said, grasping onto Jenette's logic. The flame meant Long Reach was alive. "You're right."
New Ascension's sun lowered behind the pillar of flame. The lifter drifted in lazy circles, alternating their views of evening sky and hypnotic, fiery horizon. Karr sunk into quiet self-recrimination. Up close, Jenette again noted how Karr smelled like flowers. Even the sheets of his sloughed-off skin smelled like burned flowers.
Some time later Jenette removed Karr's dressing. Both his burns and her burns were healed to the point where the skin looked healthy, if a little tender, and would continue to heal on its own. Karr stripped out of the kilnsuit. Then he powered the lifter back up and flew away from the burning horizon.
It was with a lump in her throat that Jenette realized the direction Karr had chosen: northeast. Back toward the Enclave. When Karr wasn't looking, Jenette sealed a hermetic bag, where she had put his burned skin for later disposal, and stuffed it into a pocket.
Hours later, with the column of flame still visible even though its base had sunk far below the horizon, Karr and Jenette were treated to a second Clash of Radiance. It was even more impressive than the first, because there were more islands grouped on the water below and many more points of Feral light. There were even Ferals on the ocean in small craft. The patterns danced from island to island like wildfire. From their high vantage, Karr and Jenette saw designs radiate from competing bright spots in curling fractal patterns. It seemed to the humans that those patterns were different from the previous night, as if influenced in some way by the column of flame and its forest fire glow. Rainbow Shockwav
es enveloped all the points of light on the horizon and, as the rite drew to a close, those waves centered around a single angry spot of light on the water.
Despite the beauty of the display, Jenette felt a chill. What did it all mean?
Karr kept flying after it was over, wanting to keep moving, but after another hour his head began to nod from fatigue.
"I've got to stop," Karr decided, his head snapping erect.
"Good idea," Jenette agreed. It was the third time Karr had momentarily lost consciousness.
The ideal spot to land for the night would have been on a ring-island, but they didn't dare risk another encounter with Ferals, so Karr flew until they found a wide expanse of open ocean and put the heavy lifter down.
"Someone better keep watch," Karr said, heaving himself out of the cockpit. "If the Ferals spot us...."
"I'll go first," Jenette volunteered. "I slept last night."
Karr pushed a couple of empty storage crates together for a bed, spread the survival blanket on them, and wadded up the remains of his old ghimpsuit for a pillow, but before he lay down, he detached an object from his kilnsuit and unwrapped it. "Here," he yawned, offering the object to Jenette. "This is for you."
"What is it?" she asked, looking at, but not taking the lumpy sphere.
"It's a starlure," Karr explained. "It might help with your communication problem."
Before Jenette could say anything more, Karr connected the starlure to a powerpak and tapped its colored studs. The sphere lit up like a galaxy of stars, spraying the lifter with fairy-like ballroom lights. "Try?" Karr asked, reoffering it to her.
Jenette took the globe, tentatively tapping the studs with her small hands. It repeated whatever sequence she made, long pulses, short flashes, rapid patterns, sparkling strobes, and in any color of the rainbow. "Din-tixss-ymisstash," she whispered, tapping.
Flash, pop, sparkle, pop, went the starlure.
Jenette's mouth hung open.
Karr smiled wearily. "I thought you might like it."