THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  Arrou hit the chalky ground running. The island vibrated violently under his feet. The pulley rig teetered and collapsed, but the cable kept reeling in. Arrou followed the tumbling, sliding, scraping tripod legs as the winch drew them back to the heavy lifter at the edge of the clearing. Arrou came in fast, skidding on loose bone material, slamming into the vehicle's sidewall, and then springing onto the deck. He scrambled into the cockpit and sat his butt down on the human crash couch.

  Blinking dust out of his eyes, Arrou focused on what Karr had taught him. His alien digits moved methodically over the dash.

  The big red toggle flipped up. Master switch on. All the lights flickered alive. Now he pushed the four sliders to the top of their tracks. Engine run-ups one, two, three, and four. Powerful thrusters purred to life at each corner of the lifter—even as the sounds of cracking, shattering ghutzu root joined the rising moan of pipe-organ bones towering overhead.

  Large cracks and fissures formed on the underwater side of Coffin Island: The keelroot swayed on a last, tenuous connection that strained and frayed like a steel cable unbraiding under too heavy a load, and Karr swayed with it. Severed from the glowing null-fusion chamber, stalks below the rent faded from vermilion to gray, like cooling cinders, their fiber-optic connection broken. They intertwined with tendrils still connected and glowing, but even those were growing dim. The underwater sun was dying. The lower half of the reactor bulge was dark, where it was filling with water, and no longer radiating the red light.

  It was a plan, Karr told himself as his blister was buffeted and battered by other tendrils and blisters. The explosions were of human origin, that was for sure. The placement around the keel-root, the perfectly timed pace of the detonations, all of it indicated a course of action with purpose. Whether it was Jenette's plan, or Skutch's plan, or some combination of the two, Karr presumed that it was calculated to extricate the human and Khafra members of their expedition from the current adverse situation.

  However, something had gone wrong.

  The explosions had been intended to detach the keelroot from Coffin Island. That was clear, even if Karr did not understand why. But the keelroot was not completely separated. One of the charges must have misfired; probably that had been the dead beat in the series of thundering explosions. Whatever the plan's originator had intended to occur was not occurring and, to make matters worse, geysers of air were bubbling from every ruptured tendril. The underwater tunnel system was losing its life-sustaining atmosphere, fast.

  Karr twisted so that he was facing the tear in the keelroot. He knew what he must do. He must Trust. No matter what his training had taught him. No matter that Jenette and the others were flatlanders and he was a Pilot. His own machinations had not succeeded. He must cooperate. He must add his contribution to the efforts of the others. He must put himself at the service of their intelligence and intent. He must silence the protestations in his head. Or, very obviously, all would be lost.

  It was not easy.

  Trust. No.

  Trust! No!

  TRUST! TRUST! TRUST!

  Karr jammed the tip of the Gattler against the transparent blister wall, the only barrier between him and countless tons of crushing, smothering water. He turned the selector. A barrel spun into firing position. Karr thumbed a power knob to maximum intensity. And then Karr began to hyperventilate. That was crucial for what he was about to attempt, he knew; he must fool his body into thinking it did not need to breathe. As his head began to spin from hyperventilating, he watched for the right moment. The blister swayed, bucked, jerked sideways, and then held still for a critical split second. In that instant Karr aimed through the fish-eye walls and squeezed the trigger.

  TRUST!

  The multitool thrummed, expending all of its remaining charge in one monstrous shot. It kicked hard into Karr's shoulder. A huge cutting beam lanced out from the barrel, blasting the blister wide open. A snake of flash-vaporized steam bubbles rose from the beam's path through the water, frying underwater fish-things on contact; the bubbles slid around tube stalks, which scorched, cracking and curling up like salted slugs. The beam itself expanded as it shot out, until, as it reached the severed portion of keelroot, it was a few dozen feet wide. The beam incinerated the last tenuous connections.

  Simultaneously, deep ocean pressure hammered into Karr's blister, flushing him out into the deep. The awful cold set his human muscles into seizure and Karr clenched his jaw to keep from inhaling the liquid death. The keelroot plummeted, dragging its attached network of tendrils down with a watery roar.

  The loss of counter-balancing weight sent a series of shock-waves through the main mass of Coffin Island.

  The lifter deck tilted sickeningly out of level. Looking up, Arrou saw that the horizon was all wrong. It was jagged, far too near, and rising up out of the water. Looking down, he saw that the island was breaking up, along the lines of the fissures that he and the humans had seen from the air. Mountain-sized chunks began to roll over, slowly but inexorably and with a deafening rumble, sections of ocean water becoming visible between the gaps. The part of island under the lifter steepened rapidly. The lifter slid down, crashing through skeletal trees and starting avalanches of fossil fragments. The tumbling scree picked up speed and plunged beneath frothing ocean waves. Rivers of white shard also streamed down at Arrou from above, raining over the lifter as the rakish angle of the ground increased.

  "Must fly, must fly!" Arrou rumbled, tapping claws impatiently against the dash. The small readout was at the yellow line. Thrusters buffered. But the big readout was not at the red line yet. D.O.I. throughput rising.

  The lifter fishtailed, plummeting, and then lodged amid a stand of petrified stumps. A score of yards below, angry seawater churned. Above, vast chunks of ghutzu root shattered free of the island section; Arrou heard the debris rumbling down its backside. Free of such a large amount of weight, the island section surged to vertical, hanging in the air for a giddy second at the peak of its arc, and then, with the ponderous motion of extreme mass, continued flipping right on over. The heavy lifter went with it, Arrou clinging to the controls. A shadow draped across alien and orbiter as the island fragment blocked off the afternoon sun.

  All Arrou could see was imminent impact with the water below. The big readout on the dash was still not at the red line, but he yanked on the throttle anyway. Stuttering force pulsed out from the thrusters, leveling the deck from its vertical orientation and accelerating it into a dive away from the island fragment. Arrou pulled back hard on the steering yoke. The lifter responded at the last possible instant, pulling out of the dive and skimming along the surface. Orange lights blinked across the dash, the Khafra color for apprehension; Arrou guessed the human meaning was the same or worse, but he needed no urging to be apprehensive. Island fragments, rolling ominously, loomed in all directions around the lifter. And the one casting its shadow over the flying machine was coming down at Arrou like a gargantuan fly swatter.

  The reactor chamber tumbled around Bigelow. Now he was right side up, now he was inverted. Buzzers cascaded like rocks in a polisher. Bigelow smelled bile on his lips. He heard gurgling, muffled screams from nearby in-humans, drowning underwater where Pilot Karr had glued them to the reactor casing. Bigelow felt no pity, not after what the wretched creatures had done to Toliver and Mok. Bigelow hoped the in-humans suffered, as they had made his beloved Bronte suffer. He wished them a painful, drawn-out cessation of life functions. The creatures clad in human skin thrashed, and he savored it. Perhaps later he would be ashamed of his emotions. At that moment he was not.

  Water flooded the chamber from a dozen tubeways, adding their energy together to create a frightening maelstrom. At one point, Bigelow saw Jenette thrashing to keep her head above water. Currents grabbed her and sucked her out a random tubeway, presumably to an untimely fate.

  Bigelow would meet that same fate, of course. His obese body would have floated quite nicely, the scientist reflected; maybe he would have floated face
up and not have drowned. Alas, he would never know, not affixed to the reactor as he was. Whenever his half of the double-coned reactor went under, so would Dr. Clarence Bigelow. He wondered how it would feel to breathe water. It was said to be quite euphoric after the first wet gulp, after the panic was gone. The problem with that was that his panic was not gone. In fact, it was rising higher and higher as the water rose higher and higher. Bigelow doubted he would be able to manage any composure at all, never mind be calm enough to enjoy the euphoria.

  Karr breathed out and out and out as Coffin Island self-destructed. Long after his lungs would normally have been empty he felt an aching expansion in his chest and that feeling grew as he bobbed upward.

  Most humans would have panicked and perished instantaneously in the frigid, smothering deeps, but Pilot Lindal Karr figured he had at least a thirty percent chance of survival, maybe better. Pilot Academy had versed him well in the problems of staying alive at pressures higher or lower than preferable for an unshielded human being. Perversely, while the rest of his frail body struggled to survive, his mind was suddenly filled with the overbearing, haranguing voice of Major Vidun:

  "You will now practice the Emergency Escape Ascent. As opposed to earlier training in the simulator, there is no room for error in the Tank. Failure to observe proper technique will result in drowning. You are too valuable to be allowed to perish. We will recover and revive all trainees who expire during training, but the pre-death experience is extremely unpleasant, so I suggest you listen up and try to avoid it! The Emergency Escape Ascent is a centuries-old technique for exiting a heavy lifter, escape gig, or any other vehicle that has crashed or become disabled at depths of up to two hundred feet under water. The principles are simple to grasp: get out and rise up. The practice is not so easy and not without its dangers."

  Tube stalks thrashed in the water around Karr as he rose. Severed ends spewed bubbles. Glistening balloons of air escaped and darted past Karr, racing for the surface. Buzzers also tumbled out; their inflexible carapaces were unable to cope with the sudden pressure changes and cracked, squirting inky viscera into the sea. Ropy entrails clouded the water and slithered off Karr as he kicked in the same direction as the rising bubbles.

  Vidun lectured on in Karr's head:

  "Low on the scale of danger is the risk of getting the bends. Since you will not have descended into the water using a highly pressurized air source, or spent long amounts of time in the deep water pressures, which would allow nitrogen to build up in your tissues, your risk of getting the bends is less than ten percent. More likely is the risk of hypothermia. Pilots wearing non-regulation gear will almost certainly die from the shock of deep water temperatures—another good reason to stay in uniform. Pilots in uniform will find the fabric kicks into emergency heating mode on contact with water. You will experience moderate discomfort, but you will survive."

  Moderate discomfort? Karr thought numbly. Had Vidun actually practiced what he preached? From the instant the eight-and-a-half atmospheres of deadly cold ocean hammered in around Karr, icy daggers seemed to pierce his body, sapping the heat from his very bones. The discomfort was higher than moderate, that was for sure.

  "As in any sort of compression or decompression event, the micro-carpules implanted in your lungs will release a one-minute charge of pressurized air. As you rise up through the deep water, this air will expand as the external water pressure decreases around your body. You must not hold your breath. You must instead constantly exhale or expanding air will rupture lungs. A ho-ho-ho pattern of exhalations is recommended."

  On and on the ascent continued. Karr guessed his entry into the ocean had occurred at a depth of about two hundred feet. Objectively, his rise from that depth should take only two or three minutes, but subjectively, each agonizing second seemed endless.

  "Don't forget to have your carpules recharged if you survive."

  The water temperature suddenly changed around Karr.

  "That's good. You just passed through the thermocline, the boundary between deep, painfully frigid water and the merely horribly cold water above it. That means you are at least halfway."

  Light began to grow above Karr, rippling down from between the rolling island fragments. It was beautiful in a deadly sort of way. The air in Karr's lungs ceased expanding and began to feel hot. Karr's thought processes began to feel sludgy.

  He was losing his patience with the phantom lecturer.

  "Are you paying attention, Pilot-trainee Karr?" Vidun's voice demanded. "The greatest danger of the Emergency Escape Ascent is the risk of shallow water blackout. As the air from your carpules runs out, and the oxygen stored in your cells is depleted, the carbon dioxide trigger, a part of your natural breathing processes, will be screaming for your brain to breathe."

  Shallow water blackout. Carbon dioxide trigger. Mumbo-jumbo! All Karr knew was that every cell in his body was on fire.

  "As you rise within twenty-five to thirty feet of the surface, the need to breathe may become so great that you may pass out. Then you will breathe. Then you will die. You must focus. You must not lose consciousness. Too much has been invested in you. It is your duty to humanity to stay alive."

  Fuck off, Vidun!

  Karr would pass out and breathe water if he goddamn wanted to! At least the pain would end! The more Karr thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

  And then he saw Jenette.

  The slowly rotating central section of Coffin Island was directly above Karr. Jenette had recently been spit out of a broken tube tendril and pinned in a tangle of ghutzu roots. Her short hair rippled as she struggled to free herself from of the trap. Air bubbles broke from her nose. Karr kicked feebly toward her. He contacted the bottom of the island. Somehow, he pointed the Gattler at the roots holding her and fired. A feeble line of steam erupted from the multitool's tip as the dregs of its charge sputtered through the water, but it weakened the roots enough for Jenette to break free.

  Karr's vision tunneled in. He no longer had control of his limbs. He floated helpless. Now he would breathe.

  But hands clapped over his mouth and nose, and suddenly he was being pulled along the island's underside. Jenette's slender limbs kicked, propelling, dragging him frantically from root to root, headed for the light that he could just barely see now, as if from the bottom of a deep well. Too bad it was so far away....

  He and Jenette erupted onto the surface, spitting salty water, and gasping deliriously fresh air. Jenette thrashed to keep them afloat. Slowly, the island rolled up underneath them. The cool air seemed tropical after the deep water. A gorgeous sun beat down on their shivering bodies. Karr collapsed on a tangle of green weed.

  Jenette rolled over, choking, grabbing Karr's collar. "Are you alive?" she demanded. "Say something!"

  "I'm alive," Karr groaned.

  "Good!" Jenette said angrily. "You fucking self-centered bastard!"

  The fiery blonde waif slugged Karr in the gut.

  XXXVII

  It is hard to escape the eternal cycle of suffering.

  It can be far harder to escape the delicate snares of pleasure.

  —Kthulah of Gnosis

  Tlalok and the female circled while the island burned around them. Sailtrees smoldered like spent torches. Gusts of cinder and spark twisted high into the night sky. Glowing trails of red destruction wormed inland wherever the blank-one forces had penetrated the island, and fire circled its shore, marking the passage of skimmers with flamethrowers. The blank-ones had tried to kill Tlalok; they had very nearly succeeded.

  Tlalok and the female were aware of none of this. They circled one way and then the other in the secluded glade, their eyes locked upon one another, their bodies slowly drawing closer.

  It had started with that night's Clash of Radiance. In spite of Tlalok's immense Khafra force, the blank-ones had mounted a daring, preemptive strike, darting with their skimmers through many islands crammed to overflowing with Pact, following the radiating patterns of light to the cent
er, to Tlalok. Their intent had been clear: cut off the head of the attacking monster army and it would wither and die. It had been a clever gamble. The blank-ones knew they could not fight Tlalok's entire horde, therefore they had engaged only a small portion of it, using their vehicles to cordon off the island from reinforcement. Only fanatical defense from those on the island had beaten the blank-ones back.

  The female had been part of that defense. She appeared in the chaos, at the darkest point of the battle, using her prehensile teeth to snip the head off a blank-one who was aiming a pulse-rifle at Tlalok. She was not large, but also not fragile. She was sleek and fast, with deep, melancholy eyes. And she was a deadly hunter. She fought not with brute force, like Tlalok, but with surgical precision, using no more and no less force than necessary to dispatch her foes. When the last blank-one fell, she and Tlalok found themselves alone in the glade, panting, staring, smelling...

  In the distance beyond the glade was the aftermath of battle. Khafra, silhouetted by flames, nursed their wounded, or hurried to douse patches of fire or inject immune venom to stimulate the island to heal and regenerate. Hot winds carried the smell of blood and cinder and victory. The horde had taken the best the blank-ones could dish out and driven them back—and no one believed the blank-ones could withstand what the horde would now unleash upon them. That knowledge was like a narcotic. Every Pact tasted it. In many it triggered strong emotions. In some, like Tlalok and the female, it triggered deep-seated instinctual behavior.