THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  Arrou's gut tightened.

  He hoped Pilot Karr's trick would work.

  The gap between closed to two kiloyards.

  Wind speed surged and ebbed. The rhythmic thunder of Tlalok's island plowing through ocean swells counted off the minutes.

  The gap narrowed to one kiloyard.

  Arrou could now make out individual Ferals, swarming at the forward edges of their islands, ready to spill onto the shores of the blockade-runner the instant the opposing sides made contact.

  Five hundred yards. Four hundred yards.

  "Get ready, get ready," Jenette warned on the comset.

  Three hundred yards.

  "Now!" Jenette ordered. "Let her drift!"

  <> Arrou translated.

  His sailtree—and all the others on Tlalok's island—came alive with activity. Thousands of Feral forepaws, Kitrika's included, felt for and located stems where sail leaves anchored to horizontal branches. Teeth injected immune venom into those junctures, easily piercing through the blinding hood fabric and into the wood. The large, green leaves immediately twisted up tight. With no surfaces to grab hold of, wind rushed past unfettered. Sailtrees swayed back up to vertical. Tlalok's island lost headway fast.

  A roar arose from Kthulah's fleet as his countless Ferals saw their enemies apparently lose nerve and falter.

  Halifax's gravelly voice buzzed on the comset. "Main towlines away! Skimmer teams away!"

  Behind Tlalok's island, where the two dark shapes had been trailing along, two filaments glinted briefly and fell slack, dropping into the frothing water. Six plumes of spray then erupted, three ahead of each dark shape; the sound of six turbine engines revving up reached Arrou's perch. With the dark shapes in tow, the skimmers circled around opposite sides of Tlalok's island, breaking out from its shadow into the glare of the Burning Heart. Short towlines could now be seen, stretching back from two groups of three skimmers each to two small skrag islands, each less than one hundred feet in diameter.

  The two skimmer teams joined up in front of Tlalok's island and proceeded to charge at the Feral battle lines.

  <> Kitrika asked.

  <> Arrou said, without truly answering her question. He was glad Kitrika did not know what the humans were really up to. The six tiny machines dragging two pathetic skrag islands at Kthulah's armada did not make an impressive sight. As the skimmer teams closed to within two hundred yards of the blockade, the nearest Feral islands altered their direction so as to be on a course that would overrun and crush the skimmers and skrags.

  Halifax's spoke on the comset again, yelling over the howl of turbines and the crash of waves. "On my mark. Three, two, one— mark!"

  "Fire in the hole!" buzzed Guard voices Arrou did not recognize.

  FOOM! FOOM!

  White plumes flared from the skrag islands as charges preset by Guardsman Skutch ignited. Sheets of hungry green flame climbed skyward, devouring stockpiles of incendiary fuel. Candles of viridian spark flurried back and up from fires that swelled ten times larger than the skrag islands they originated from.

  Confusion flashed discordantly across the blockade lines. Sail-trees on the Feral islands suddenly heaved over, groaning, dragging the islands of the fleet to either side of the oncoming menace. A gap grew in the first battle line as one island swerving caused the next in line to veer off, and so on, like falling dominoes.

  The fire-skrags passed through the first battle line.

  "Full speed ahead," Jenette ordered. "Full speed ahead!"

  <> Arrou yelled.

  Again Kitrika and the other Ferals on his tree injected immune venom into sail-leaf stems. This time the green sheets unfurled, billowing out and catching the wind. The sailtrees on the island groaned, leaning forward once more as the island picked up speed and was soon churning along after the skimmers and fire-skrags.

  Radiance flickered as leaders on the Feral fleet rallied their forces, but by the time the islands began to turn back inward, in a vain attempt to reform the first battle line, Tlalok's island was charging through the gap. Another cheer arose in the night, this time it was not from Kthulah's Ferals but from the humans on Tlalok's island, and Arrou, who tilted back his head and howled right along with them.

  L

  At the darkest, most desperate point of our lives, that is where we find out what we are truly made of.

  —from the private journals of Olin Tesla

  Tlalok's hood-blinded Ferals did not rejoice with the noisy humans and domestics. Neither did Jenette. She had direct experience with Kthulah and the Ferals of Gnosis; the fire-skrags had taken them by surprise, but they were too sophisticated to react the same way twice.

  Tlalok's island, lead by the skimmers and the flaming skrags, charged at Kthulah's second battle line.

  True to Jenette's fears, the Ferals of that second line reacted with none of the disarray shown by the first. The chain of islands splits, tacking away to the north and south, forming a gap in the path of the burning skrags. When the breach was wide enough to allow the fire-skrags to pass harmlessly through, the Feral islands tacked back inward on exactly the right angle to intercept Tlalok's island.

  Jenette did not know what Kthulah's Ferals would do with Tlalok's Ferals if the opposing forces met, but she knew that her fellow humans would fight to the bitter end. They had gambled everything on this daring plan. They would succeed and live or fail and die. It was as simple as that. Many of both species would perish. For the greater good. Her father would have approved. Jenette hated it. She felt trapped.

  Furious, she looked around the reactor mound.

  Tlalok stood immobile, legs splayed and head down, a barely perceptible clenching of muscles visible under his thick armor plate. Unpredictably his head would jerk erect, his teeth splaying, stretching the blinding-hood fabric tight, and an ominous rumble would resonate through the alien's torso as he fought his deep-rooted hatred of the hood.

  Karr, to Jenette's surprise, was focused on winding a small length of microfiber string around his left index finger. Once in a while, he peeked up at the unfolding sea battle, but mostly he stared at the string. When it was all coiled up around his finger, he methodically uncoiled it, at which point he started the obsessive process all over again.

  "What are you doing?" she hissed at Karr.

  "Nothing," he responded without looking up.

  With growing annoyance, Jenette waved an arm at the battle unfolding ahead of them. "Don't you see what's happening out there?"

  "Yes," Karr said, pointedly not looking up from his winding and unwinding. "And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I helped make the plan. Now it is in motion. Capable humans and aliens are executing it. I need to let them do their jobs. That's what you told me back on Coffin Island. And you were right. I must trust." Karr gritted his teeth. "Does it drive me crazy to stand here doing nothing? Emphatically, yes! That's why I'm taking this action which affects nothing, meddles with nothing, interferes with nothing. I'm going to wind this string around my finger until we break through the Feral lines or don't. Either way, I figure there will be plenty to keep me occupied at that point."

  There was a crazy logic to Karr's explanation, Jenette had to admit.

  "Got another piece of string?" she asked.

  "No, sorry."

  Upon the ocean, the contest continued to unfold. The humans piloting the tow-skimmers were not beaten yet. The two teams split up, veering toward the closing pincers of the blockade line. The lead island on the northern pincer rapidly broke off, its Ferals throwing sail-leaves aback, heeling the island around to avoid the roaring, rapidly approaching the plume of green flame and, in the process, forcing the islands following it to break off also. The lead island on the southern pincer was a different story, however. It was closing fast with Tlalok's island and its Ferals had no intention of veering off from their target. The quadrupeds strobed with displeasure as a fire-skrag was towed i
nto their path. Orders crackled across the island's bulk and the living mass took evasive measures, first tacking one way and then, abruptly, another, but the skimmers pulling the skrag made a course correction for every action the Ferals took. The skimmers were barely strong enough to pull the skrag; they could move no faster than the Feral island, but the skimmers could turn in any direction they needed to, unlike the Ferals who were restricted by the direction of the wind.

  The Feral island, the skimmers, the fire-skrag, and Tlalok's island formed a short, straight line. From Jenette's point of view, the roaring green plume from the skrag made it hard to see the skimmers and the Feral island. Fluctuations in the wind brought the stinging smell of incendiary fuel to her nostrils. Pulse-cannons along the shore of Tlalok's island hummed as Guards powered the killing machines up in anticipation of combat.

  Who, Jenette wondered, would blink first?

  Jenette glanced back at Karr. He was winding the microfiber string so tightly around his finger that the tip was turning purple.

  Kthulah's Ferals blinked first. Strong instincts to nurture and protect the islands that they lived upon spurred the Ferals into action. Hordes of the glowing aliens, who had bunched up along the island's shoreline, scattered. Light blurs swirled along sailtree limbs and organic sail-leaves abruptly changed angles as the Khafra tried to swerve away from the fire-skrag.

  "Too late," Jenette whispered.

  Through the billowing green skrag flame, Jenette saw tiny human forms move in the skimmers. The sound of turbines changed as the skrag was cast off. Plumes of water curved out into clear view as the nimble vessels darted out from between the imminent collision of the Feral island and the fire-skrag. The fire-skrag plowed on, losing headway, but still headed toward the Feral island. The aliens attempted a sharper turn. Overstrained sailleaves tore free and fluttered off into blood-red night, like flocks of startled flying creatures.

  The flaming skrag struck, spinning down the side of the Feral island, leaving trails of green napalm wherever contact was made. Stress faults shot through the skrag and it broke up, fragments spreading across the ocean like a burning minefield. Feral islands down the line veered off in panic. The second island in line snagged against the third, the fourth, and fifth islands, unable to spill speed from their sails in time, plowed into them. Ghutzu tore, sailtrees toppled, distant Ferals screamed.

  The high slopes of Gnosis provided a clear view. The outer blockade line was breached. The inner line was in disarray. The island full of blank-ones and treacherous Pact was winding its way through flaming green island fragments while the blank-one water machines joined together and began to pull the remaining fire-skrag toward Gnosis. The blank-ones intended to impede any last-ditch attempts by Kthulah to cut their island off. It was a wasted effort. The island of Gnosis moved ponderously, with the dignity of its weight and the Wisdom of its Roots. Before it could so much as turn around, the intruders would make good their escape.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <> the Judges offered, penitent gray forms with their single cobalt glowbuds shining between black eye orbs.

  Kthulah's muzzle pinched with concern. <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <> the Judges said in unison.

  <> Kthulah said spreading the four thumbs on his paw. <>

  <> <>

  <>

  <> the Judges admitted sadly. Their heads tilted, pondering all sides of the Balance.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <> the Judges wondered.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <> Kthulah said, saddened by the loss of so many of his brave Pact. <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <> the Judges flashed, trying unsuccessfully to make sense of their tallies of black and white beads.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  Kthulah felt the aches of all the many decisions he had made in the course of his allotted years. It never seemed to end. Kthulah wished the Judges would accept his answer of silence. They did not. They shook their bead-laden staves at him, unsatisfied.

  <> Kthulah said, <>

  LI

  All is not as is seems.

  Expect the unexpected.

  Don't be afraid of a little pain.

  —Reflections of a Fugueship Pilot. Lindal Karr

  Snap. Secure the backup line to a kilnsuit pintle. Click-clack. Insert new cartridges into the Gattler. Rrrrrrzzzk-chuk. Lock fish-bowl helmet into position.

  The null-fusion reactor lay on its side, looming behind Karr, Dr. Bigelow, and Tlalok; the cavity surrounding the gunmetal hourglass was lit only by a soft purple glow from its perfectly tuned null-field. Karr was in his kilnsuit, suspended over a deep well shaft that connected the insulated cavity to the ocean depths beneath Tlalok's island. Filament lines ran up from carabiners on Karr's chest to a pulley at the apex of a tripod rig that squatted over the shaft. The lines then ran down to a winch unit. Both that winch and the null-fusion reactor were connected to a timing device. Red digital numerals on its face were counting down.

  Seventeen minutes, forty-nine seconds to go.

  At one minute to go, the winch would begin spooling out filament. Karr would drop down through the ghutzu shaft and into the water where Long Reach lay. At zero minutes, zero seconds, the null-fusion reactor itself would overload, at which point it would not be a good idea to be a living organism anywhere in its vicinity.

  None of the three sentients in the cavity spoke much. Dr. Bigelow was scurrying around the reactor doing last minute triplechecks of null-nodes and detonator cabling. Tlalok sat beside the timing counter, watching it and the humans most distrustfully.

  Jenette stood on the trailing shore of Tlalok's island. Sailtrees and the reactor mound stood out in stark silhouette against the fugueship fires. At a distance of two kiloyards out, the four smaller pillars of hydrogen flame, rotating slowly around a massive central pillar, blotted out half the sky. Jenette felt as though she were inside a blast furnace. Searing convection currents hammered at her back, sucking leaves and other loose debris over the ground and ocean and pulling Tlalok's island faster and faster toward its doom; roaring flames thundered in her ears, making thinking hard and talking all but impossible.

  Jenette cupped her hands over her comset pickup and yelled, "Pilot Karr, what is your status?"

  "Physical preparations are complete," Karr's voice buzzed back. "Dr. Bigelow is taking his last looks as we speak."

  "Tell him to hustle it up," Jenette yelled. "The evacuation is underway."

  Hordes of humans, Ferals, and domestics were streaming down to the island's shore where they boarded rafts and paddleboards and anything else that could float. The ocean behind Jenette was black with vessels, many of them being towed by lines spider-webbing out from three of the remaining six colony skimmers (Colonel Halifax was in one of those machines, doing his best to oversee the chaotic retreat). Several thousand bipeds and quadrupeds were crammed onto the remains of a fire-skrag, its incendiary fuel having long since gone out. Two more skimmers towed that mass toward safety.

  Evacuating humans looked back at the Burning Heart of Night full of apprehension. Feral expressions were torn between the beauty of the mighty Radiances and the horror of abandoning an island that many of them had lived upon,
and nurtured, for their entire lives; many of the aliens had to be forcibly removed by their kindred.

  Jenette stood with Arrou, Skutch, Liberty, and Grubb beside the sixth skimmer as the last straggling evacuees reached the shore.

  Dr. Marsh and a cluster of med-techs and domestics carried a wailing Panya Hedren into the skimmer. The poor woman had chosen a most inopportune time to go into labor; the Enclave hospital would have been a much better place for her, if it wasn't for the fact that Bragg's mob had been left in control of the colony island, and they were very angry with Panya because she had helped Karr escape their clutches. Burke, Tengen, Rusty, and two young domestics, who Jenette had so recently assigned to the human couple, hurried into the skimmer behind Panya. All of them looked very concerned.

  "Bigelow and Tlalok need to get their butts up here ASAP," Jenette's voice buzzed in Karr's helmet ten minutes later.

  "Understood," Karr replied. He activated his suit's external speaker. "You two heard that?"

  Bigelow nodded distractedly; his attention was fixated on an out of the way panel underneath the reactor.

  Tlalok was glowering at Karr. "Do not die killing the False Radiance. Remember, the human Karr's life is already forfeit to Tlalok."

  "I'll keep that in mind," Karr said, glumly wishing he could stop thinking about the depths of the well that gaped under his boots, and stop worrying about whether Dr. Bigelow's calculations were correct. If the sequential negation of null-fields did not actually shape the exploding reactor core energies as promised, Karr and Long Reach would be rendered down to their component molecules. It was a good thing he could not disconnect himself from the winch filaments without assistance, or he might have succumbed to the impulse to flee the reactor cavity gibbering idiotically with fear.