by Garon Whited
Yes. Yes, I suppose so.
It’s okay. I understand. But, for me? Please?
Oh, all right.
I psyched up into hyper-speed and came around the rock. Plant a foot, hard, to make the turn. Plant the next one, sink it deep into the ground, grab a dozen cubic feet of earth and stone with a fan of tendrils. Power forward, leaning into it, accelerating like a bullet down a rifle barrel. Plant another foot, spread the tendrils in the ground, push…
I came at them from the side at some unreasonable speed and launched myself up toward the back of one. It was a very flat arc, barely clearing the beast in the weird, slow-motion effect of vampire velocity. I brought Firebrand around in a sweeping, underhand blow, the metal ringing as it sliced air, the sword-point making a cracking sound, like a whip. The blade met the side of one beast’s neck, cutting deep, hitting bone, shattering it, killing the creature instantly.
Of course, the blow also knocked me off-balance while midair. I tumbled like fighter jet missing a wing. Fortunately, there was a handy tree along my now-uncontrolled flight path. I broke a couple of branches to slow myself and crashed to the ground. Fortunately, there was a handy clump of bushes for me to land in.
At least I was well-hidden from the remaining elephant. So, there was a bright side. Sort of.
I thrashed and crashed my way out of branches and leaves, regaining my feet and freedom while spitting pine needles and picking prickly leaves out of my shirt. Mary made another pass at her own badly-damaged target, this time seizing it by a tusk and using it as a lever. She wrenched the head around, twisting it, breaking the neck. If it wasn’t so weakened, she might still have been able to do that, but I wouldn’t care to bet. In its current state it stood no chance of resisting her undead strength.
The third one, upon hearing the neck crack, dropped its rock and ran for it. It was surprisingly fast. Not as fast as undead monsters, of course, but it must have done thirty miles an hour in a sprint. I wondered about its musculature and bone structure. It’s not easy to propel something so big at such speed.
I chased after it and Mary fell into step beside me, grinning from ear to ear.
“See! I told you this was fun! I’m starting to understand the Constantines a lot better!”
“It’s interesting, at least,” I agreed. “I want to catch this one. I think they’re smarter than your average animal.”
“Oh? I like a challenge. Want me to go for the legs?”
“No, the vitality.”
“That feels like cheating.”
“We can let it go afterward. If you really want to, you can go hunting for it when it’s feeling better.”
“That’s more sporting. Okay.”
As we followed it, I snaked tendrils into its flesh, draining its vital energies. Mary did the same, running with her good hand outstretched to guide her tendril. Her other arm hung at her side, still regenerating; all the bouncing around wasn’t helping it. My own ribs and right arm were unhappy with me, but weren’t the target of a cannonball, either. Besides, I regenerate faster than she does.
We leeched away the creature’s strength and it bellowed in the infrasonic, causing leaves and guts to resonate in sympathy. It took a lot longer than I anticipated. A creature that massive has a lot of vitality to drain, especially when its metabolism is in high gear to flee from a threat. It didn’t help that Mary and I had to run to keep up. We could do the running easily enough, even drastically outpace it. The trouble was with running over irregular terrain without going face-first into the dirt, while at the same time concentrating on draining only the vital force from the target, without killing it…
Try this. Wear one cowboy boot and leave the other foot bare. Now chase a hyperactive child around the yard while touching his head with one finger and nothing else.
It can be done. It’s a lot of trouble, but it can be done. The elephant ran, we jogged along behind it, and it tired out unnaturally quickly. I didn’t run into anything, but I did condemn a few tree roots to eternal torment as I rose to my feet and resumed the chase. Eventually, it slowed and stopped, exhausted. Without the distraction of a chase, we could focus on our vitality-draining efforts. The elephant collapsed to its knees and lay down, unable to stand.
“Happy?” Mary asked, as we approached it.
“I just want to see what level of understanding it has,” I replied, brushing leaf litter and grit from my shirtfront. Mary, of course, didn’t trip over anything. Maybe it’s all those years of learning to walk and run in high heels. Maybe it has something to do with her original breed of vampire. Or maybe she’s just more coordinated than I am.
“Scientist,” she accused.
“I wish.”
“You are, deep down in your hot, black heart.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I touched the sleeping elephant’s head and worked my tendrils into its mind. The brain was larger than I’d thought and more complicated. Interesting, but not as informative as I’d hoped. I needed it awake to really get anything.
How do you interrogate something this big and this dangerous? I could sink it in quicksand, if I had some quicksand. Tying it up might work, but I didn’t have a half-mile of steel cable on me. Did I dare bring it back to Diogenes’ compound? No, that was too risky. Besides, dragging it all the way back would take half the night.
Well, I could always wake it up and try to talk to it.
We cleared away anything it might use for ammunition and backed off. I picked a spot where we would be in clear view, but at what I hoped it would consider a non-threatening distance. Then I gave it a trickle of vitality, watching for signs it was waking up. When its internal lights started coming on, I stopped feeding it energy and started trying to talk with it. Firebrand was quite willing to help. Nearly beheading a monster of such size improved its mood markedly.
It’s talking, Boss.
What’s it saying?
“What happened? Where am I?” Now it’s seen us and it’s afraid, but it’s too exhausted to run.
Tell it we’re not going to hurt it.
Now it’s scared because it can hear me. It also doesn’t believe you. The things like you are dangerous in large groups, but you two are especially big and lethal.
Things like us?
Yes. Bipeds. With pointy things. They live… uh, I guess they live farther south. I’m not getting a lot of clarity about that. But the ants are gone, so these four-legged things are migrating away from the threat of the bipeds with pointy things.
It’s not thinking of them as bipeds, surely.
No, but you do. They walk on two legs, have two arms—they might be human.
Interesting. How smart does this thing seem to be?
Smart enough to be afraid of you.
Anything smarter than an eggplant should be able to do that.
It’s also smart enough to call for help, which is what it did when you chased it.
So we can expect more of them?
It thinks so. Boss, it has a rudimentary grasp of numbers. It thinks there should be a war party coming this way—about twelve individuals. These three were scouting a safe path north for the migrating ones.
Running from the pointy things?
No… not exactly. It isn’t consciously… hmm. What I think it means, or what I think is happening from what it thinks it knows… Families farther south are being killed or driven north, which makes for territorial fights. There’s a sort of gradual ripple of movement, driving everyone north. These are just the first wave into the ant territories.
Quick question: Are there more ant colonies?
It thinks there are, just not around here. It doesn’t actually know because everything avoids them.
My comment was aloud and reflected my displeasure.
Is it smart enough to talk if I go to the trouble of a translation spell? I asked.
I think so, but it doesn’t think like you do. It’s at least as smart as a dog, but it’s also… rigid. It’s more like a really
dumb Diogenes than you. It’s not a creative thinker.
“Mary, did you hear all that?”
“Yes,” Firebrand and Mary replied together.
“We’ll keep an eye out for assault elephants sneaking through the trees,” Mary assured me. She waved down the Diogenes drone and explained. It flew off in a search pattern. I worked my translation spell, taking care to get it right. The local environment didn’t help, but our recent work with the local magical alphabet did. It wasn’t quite as troublesome as I’d feared.
“Hello.”
It grunted at me, which I heard as, “Kill me and be done with it.”
The spell worked. I could talk to the animal. Holy crap. I’m an undead Doctor Doolittle.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were forced to move north. Could I ask you to go around my territory?”
“When you’re pushed out of your territory, you push someone out of theirs.”
“That’s not a helpful attitude.”
“I don’t intend to help you.”
“I’m trying to be reasonable, here. I can’t just pick up and leave.”
“Then one of us will die,” it replied, flatly. It was certainly smart enough to understand all these concepts, even to consider what I wanted in making its plans, but either it was instinctually unable to alter its behavior pattern—in this case, when pushed out of your territory, push someone else out of theirs—or it was simply stubborn.
Either way, it didn’t bode well for Diogenes and my Apocalyptica residence. At least, not unless someone did some population control.
Did I have options? Maybe. Could I reduce the threat from the bipeds with the pointy things? I’d have to see what they were, first. Humans? Chimpanzees? Mutant gorillas? Or something else?
No, on second thought, that wouldn’t work. Reducing the threat to the elephants wouldn’t stop the present migratory ripple northward. It might eventually permit a receding effect, but that could take… weeks? Months? And they would keep tromping this way in the meantime.
How hard would it be on Diogenes to set up shop elsewhere? I didn’t like the idea too much. The university grounds had a nice basis for a computer-controlled robot infrastructure. There might be places equally nice, but surveying them would be a lengthy project. One worth starting, of course, in case we ran out of choices.
“Okay, listen,” I told the elephant, “either you’re smart enough to understand this or you’re not. I think you are, so you’re going to have a chance at living. Get me? Your life depends on this, so concentrate. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
“You’re encroaching on my territory. The territory with the whirring, clanking things. If you avoid them, you get to live. If you fight them, even if you kill one, you… will… die. So stay away from them. Go around them. If they block you, keep going sideways until they don’t, then you can continue. Then you get to live. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” it replied. I could see the life inside it and knew it told the truth. I also saw it didn’t care what I said. It was going to throw rocks at clanking things and stomp them to death no matter what. It was an instinctive response, I think, built in. I’m not sure it could do anything else. So I sucked back what little vitality it possessed, opened it’s neck with Firebrand, and let the blood crawl out of the beast.
I whistled for Mary while the corpse drained into me. She came into view and I waved her over. She skipped lightly over the corpse and sat on top of it as though it were a boulder. She crossed her ankles and leaned backward on her arms. I noticed her broken arm was working again. She regenerates much more quickly than when we first met.
“Well? Did it not go smoothly?”
“They’re stubborn beasts with more intellect than is good for them.”
“So, practically human?”
“They fall more than a little short of human, but, sadly, there are many similarities. They’re also being driven north by something that might actually be human, so I’d like to find out more.”
“Why’d you kill it?”
“Because I didn’t want it talking its friends. We may have to kill a lot of them to keep them out of our territory. They’re… how to put this? They have very strong ideas—and very rigid ones—about their feeding grounds.”
“You’re still cranky, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am.” I thought about it for a minute, looking over the giant, uninhabited piece of bleeding meat. “No, that’s not quite right. I just don’t care anymore. Or not much. I remember a time when I would have argued this problem away, or tried to. Now I’m thinking it’s easier to cut them down than to argue with them.”
“Do I need to be your conscience?”
“Possibly. I killed the thing I was using for one.”
“Oh,” she replied, in a very small voice. “You don’t have one?”
“Just the normal one, I guess, rather than the neurotic version. Don’t worry; you’re prettier than the one I killed.”
“Good. I’d hate to nag you to death, especially if it’s my death. So, what next? Help Diogenes build an airplane and go look for your possibly-human things?”
“I’m thinking I’ll use a scrying mirror and see what I can find.”
“And then what?”
“Actually, you’re getting pretty good at gates, aren’t you?”
“Uh… yes?”
“How would you like to do some reconnoitering?”
“I’m not against it,” she said, shrugging. “It sounds like an adventure. But, if you don’t mind, I’m going to eat an elephant first.”
“I think this one’s empty.”
“I’ll bite one of the others while you squeeze its heart with tendrils.”
“Deal.”
As an aside, it’s hard to suck blood out of an elephant. Mary had blood all over her by the time she finished. Of course, her solution was to hug me; all the blood crawled into my skin.
At least I feel useful.
Apocalyptica, Monday, May 23rd, Year 1
The Ascension Spheres we used for alphabet research are now gone. I burned both of them in some enchantment work.
It took some time—and the first Ascension Sphere—to finish attuning the micro-rings for my Diogephone to each other. I like the idea of keeping easy communications with Diogenes. Those rings are tiny, no more than a millimeter in diameter, not good for much else besides laser light and focused radio waves, but that suits me. I don’t plan to go through them! Of course, now they’re specifically tuned and linked to improve their efficiency and accuracy—I might be able to dial into one from a random gate, but they won’t try to connect to anything but each other.
Mary and Diogenes, meanwhile, are eyeballing other universes. That’s going to be a long-term project.
The other Ascension Sphere discharged into a slightly larger iridium ring Diogenes milled out. It’s a nonspecific gate—one that isn’t attuned to another ring. It can dial anywhere, in theory, even if there isn’t a gate at the other end. All it takes is focus and power. Since it’s not large—about an inch in diameter—the power requirement isn’t too bad.
Actually, with several electromagical transformers feeding the new ring-gate, it opens to other universes fairly easily. As a preliminary test, we had the whole magical alphabet strung out in a line, acting as a base address—no other universe should have exactly the same alphabet, so the little ring-gate was essentially trying to dial itself.
As a note, it can do that. I can look through the thing as though I were looking out of it at myself. Weird.
But Mary and Diogenes are handling this project. Mary removes one letter of the magical alphabet from the address, fires up the gate, and we sort of take pot luck on what we get. Diogenes sticks a sensor probe through the ring to check for radio signals, radiation, air quality, solar spectrum, life signs, chemical traces—all the stuff you’d expect when you’re deciding whether or not to visit another planet. The probe almost a meter lo
ng to accommodate all the sensors, including the cameras.
He also has a rudimentary sensor, now, for detecting general magical flux. He should be able to tell if it’s a world with low, medium, or high magical energy… provided he doesn’t have to do it through an open, highly-charged, magical gateway. That seems to interfere with his calibration. Go figure. Still, even if he can’t tell how magical a place is, he can figure out a lot about it. If we really want to, we can always dial up the new place on the main gate and go look.
At least I’m one step closer to building an actual magical rating scale. High, medium, and low are a start. Progress!
As part of the process, I’ve put my still-damaged suit of armor next to an electromagical transformer. Well, I told Diogenes to do it. He’s doing more calibrating of his magical sensor by watching parts of the armor regenerate and observing the different rates of repair based on distance from the transformer. Clever computer.
This also reminded me to ask him about better armor materials. He assures me he can do better, given time. His infrastructure is for building robots and clones, which is geared mainly toward salvaging existing materials and manufacturing biochemistry. Until I asked, there was no need for top-of-the-line personal armor. But he assures me we should be able to duplicate what this world had in the way of top-notch armor.
While Mary and Diogenes look for potential extra-universal vacation spots for me, I also mentioned relocating our current facility to avoid elephant stampedes. Diogenes tells me we can, since he has a number of sites off-campus. Most of them are resource points—powerplants being renovated, materials processing centers, salvage and recycling, all those sorts of things. None of them are equipped for self-supply, nor are they equipped for guests, but he’s starting work on that, too.
We’re really putting a crimp in his industrial infrastructure expansion. He doesn’t seem to mind, though.
As for me, I’m checking out the supposed bipeds-with-spears.
Getting a scrying mirror to work here isn’t so hard. It simply takes longer to cast the spell and it has a tendency to quit unpredictably—usually when I’m trying to zoom in on something.