D'Arc

by Robert Repino

  Orak does not wish to speak with you, Riyya said.

  After she left him, Taalik rested at the bottom of his crater. He closed his eyes and tried to calculate how long the food stores would last. When he opened them, a blinding light forced him to squint. He no longer swam in the shallows. Instead, he stood on his claws, in the dirt, gulping the thin air. The sun burned white in a blue sky. Massive trees sprung from the earth. He knew then that he was dreaming. The Queen spoke to him at last. She heard his call.

  The Queen showed him something he did not at first understand. One of his people—one of the crablike ones—nursed her eggs in a nest spun out of silk. In her perch, the creature sensed the web vibrating, shuddering. An intruder approached. Taalik felt the land-crab’s fear. She scrambled to protect her young. But there were so many—beasts covered in fur, mounted on insects kidnapped from the Queen’s army, enslaved and brainwashed. Over there, Taalik shouted. No, wait, there are more over there! The land-crab could not hear him. Predators moved in. The nest collapsed. The invaders cracked open the eggs and killed the young ones as they emerged blinded and confused. Taalik smelled their blood.

  Everything went black. Taalik shook with rage and fear. These beasts of the earth consumed all in their path, the innocent and the damned.

  A weightless sensation buoyed him. A cloudless blue sky came into focus, with the sun hanging over the glacier. Despite the wind, Taalik did not need to blink or squint.

  A human boy stood at the edge of the glacier. Scrawny, with sunken eyes and spindly limbs, wearing a thin fabric over his skinny body. Despite the boy’s weakness, he stretched out his arms toward the sun, and it obeyed. With his bony hands, the boy commanded the sun to descend. Taalik knew this child. He had known him his whole life. The boy Michael, the human prophet who once spoke with the Queen herself.

  At the edge of the glacier, a column of ice trembled and broke free, collapsing into the black water in a mountain of white foam. The sun brightened as more pieces of the glacier crumbled. Taalik reached out his claws and realized that he could see through the boy’s eyes. Together, they commanded the ball of fire to collide with the ice. The glacier buckled. Fissures burst, releasing geysers of salt water. A canyon formed, and the inlet spilled into it.

  The deed done, Taalik rose higher into the sky until he viewed the events from orbit. A blue line sliced through the white expanse, leading to the sea on the other side. A path to freedom for his people. Instead of cutting their way through their attackers, they would command the morning star to reshape the world.

  Taalik saw a long journey, from the northern ice cap into the green forests of the south. And in the midst of the foliage, a gray slab stuck out, an insult to the natural beauty. A city built by humans. Only there could Taalik take control of the sun. To do so, he would have to find the child, the prophet who wielded the Queen’s power.

  Taalik plummeted. His tentacles flapped in the wind. The sea spread out around him. When he hit the surface, he opened his eyes to find himself in the crater again.

  Taalik took in the smells. Though his body was exhausted, his mind felt sharper than ever, as it often did after a revelation from the Queen. Now he needed to act.

  He swam past the nursery and through the crab farms. At the mouth of the inlet, a row of Juggernauts kept watch. The water smelled clean—no sign of the enemy. And yet they appeared without warning these days, as if dropped from the sky. Taalik scanned the soldiers until he spotted Orak. She had already seen him. He waved her over.

  She spoke to me, he said.

  Orak glared at him. Do you wish to know why Nong-wa is dead?

  What do you mean?

  I killed her. I ordered her to go with the scouts because she wanted to ram the blockade, against your wishes. Her death will stall any more talk of mutiny. For now.

  Her voice gave off a sharp iciness, as unforgiving as the glacier that surrounded them.

  Do you see what I am prepared to do to protect you? she asked. If I have to save you from this Queen who haunts your mind, I will do that as well.

  The Queen has revealed a way out. But it will be difficult.

  Taalik looked past her to the entrance of the inlet, its towering walls piercing the surface. The Juggernauts were watching him. All of you, he said. The Queen speaks to us once more.

  They clicked in response, singing praises to Hymenoptera Unus.

  Take every boulder you can find, every column of ice. Create a barricade. Seal the inlet.

  Seal the inlet? Orak said.

  Do it now.

  Soon the ground shook with their efforts. Each boulder that fell into place echoed with a loud clack through the water, like the claws of some giant lobster.

  My Egg, Orak said, the first time she had addressed him as such in a long time. Tell me what you are doing.

  The inlet must be protected while we are gone.

  Gone?

  We must journey across the ice, he said. To the human stronghold. The answers we seek await us there.

  You told us that we must flee from the humans.

  We can no longer hide. So we will attack before they strike.

  But you are the only one who can leave the water.

  The Queen calls on all of us. Today, we find out who will answer.

  As she contemplated this, another boulder fell into place. A cloud of dust mushroomed from the growing pile of debris. The infirmary attendants and crab farmers stopped what they were doing to join in. A few of the nursery workers held the eggs to keep them from shaking.

  As the chaos surrounded them, Taalik reached out his tentacle and waited for Orak to take it with hers. She did so, but looked away.

  Do not be afraid, he said. We will harness the sun and make it do our bidding. The Queen has chosen you as well. To see the sun for yourself.

  The inlet became a lake. When construction on the wall fell silent, the Sarcops floated before the new edifice. They were safe, but trapped. The barrier cut off the noises from the deep, and sealed out the scent of the enemy. The water seemed darker and colder. The odors grew stale. The lake became like a hollowed out carcass, waiting for scavengers to clear it away.

  The Juggernauts rallied at the northern end of the lake to survey the cliff they would have to scale. Taalik could see defeat bleeding into the eyes of even his most trusted soldiers. Only the First of Us had crossed over into the world of the Queen. He told them they would follow the ice until the seas opened again. They could swim the rest of the way. When one of the soldiers asked how long it would take to find the water, Taalik said he didn’t know.

  The Queen did not lead us here to abandon us, he said. We will adapt, the way she did.

  That was why they had come here. Only this ordeal would transform the Sarcops into the Queen’s new army. She sacrificed herself for them. She took on the weight of the world’s suffering, reliving every death in order to redeem all life. Their pain was a mere fraction of what she experienced for thousands of years.

  Orak, Asha, Riyya, and Zirsk would join the expedition, along with a handful of other Juggernauts. The rest would stay behind. There were enough males from each class to continue breeding. The remaining females would take charge, and only those males who obeyed would be allowed to mate.

  Together, the Juggernauts rose to the surface. When they reached the top, only Taalik emerged into the cold air. Snow fell from white clouds, and a wind agitated the water. Taalik hooked his claws onto the glacier and began to climb. When he inhaled, the cold wind burned his throat, like breathing in a cloud of dust from the ocean floor. As the pain subsided, he looked down. The top of Orak’s head poked through the surface, her eyes scanning this alien landscape. She paddled closer to the wall, gripped it, and lifted herself out. Taalik watched as she opened her mouth to let the air in. She fought through a coughing fit until she at last regained control.

  Soon t
he entire expedition clung to the wall. In the lead, Taalik heard his comrades’ grunting, along with an occasional crack from a bad foothold. Their first taste of gravity would be more difficult than his, but they would manage.

  The wind blew stronger at the top, sweeping snow across the ice. A storm tumbled over the glacier. He stared into it to show he was not afraid.

  Within minutes, the rest of the expedition joined Taalik at the summit, awaiting his instructions. He did not have to speak. The storm rolling in spoke for him. They would have to walk right through it.

  CHAPTER 12

  Upheaval

  A storm arrived on the first night of their journey. D’Arc’s fur became so soaked that she could ring out the tip of her tail. As she shivered under a tree, Falkirk prepared dinner, using his poncho as a tarp. A couple of bottles collected water next to him. Despite the noise from the rain, D’Arc could hear Falkirk whispering to himself. He thanked God for the food, thanked the Prophet for peace, and asked for guidance in the days to come. And then he said, “Sierra, Amelia, Yeager—watch over me.” He mumbled something else that D’Arc couldn’t make out.

  “Food’s ready,” he said.

  She joined him under the warm halo of the tarp. They sat with their knees facing each other. With a day of hiking behind them, the meal seemed almost decadent. A stew boiled in the pot, made of protein rations, seaweed, and beans. The first mouthful dropped into her empty stomach, warming her. She had spoken very little on this first leg of the journey. At least four days of walking remained, five if this rain continued. In nearly every step she took, D’Arc caught herself thinking, no, we can still go back. The excitement from the morning evaporated so quickly out here in the unknown. She would find it again, but she needed to fight through this first.

  “Who are those people you were talking to?” she asked.

  Falkirk paused. “My family. They’re gone. But not really.”

  The dying fire let out one last pop. An ember landed on her fur. She patted it out.

  “Maybe we should talk about Hosanna,” he said.

  She continued her line of questioning from when they had first met. The husky patiently answered everything, down to details about what the humans smelled like, what music the rats listened to, how big the main temple was.

  D’Arc devoted the entire next day to interrogating him about the al-Rihla expedition. She wondered about the crew—what species were represented, what skills allowed them to qualify. She asked what they expected to find in the Caribbean, in the isthmus of Central America, on the coast of Africa. But her most important question was why. Why would people leave the fragile civilization in Hosanna to explore?

  Falkirk put it this way: “We want to meet a panda who speaks Mandarin.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We want to see who’s out there. We want to hear their stories. We want to tell them ours.”

  She smiled. He gave her the best answer she could have asked for. “What about a lizard speaking Arabic?”

  He laughed. “Or a silverback gorilla speaking Swahili?”

  This made her giggle. “How about . . . a kangaroo. Speaking . . . Australian!”

  Falkirk furrowed his brow. “Australian’s not a language.” D’Arc laughed. “It’s not!” he said.

  The next day, while the rain fell so hard she could drink it as it ran down her face, she asked him if he had killed his master. When he didn’t answer right away, she apologized for being so forward. “It’s okay,” he said. “But be careful with that one.” Though he did not kill his master, he did join the war, along with his siblings. All of them died in the conflict.

  “What do you whisper to your family at night?” she asked.

  “I say, ‘Forgive me.’”

  She wanted to tell him about her own young ones. They did not have names, only sounds and scents. She wanted forgiveness, too—but mainly for the crime of barely remembering them.

  To change the subject, she asked what Falkirk did in the military. After Golgotha, when the humans incorporated the animals into their pack, Falkirk applied to the flight school. He always had an interest in the humans’ flying machines. Maybe God opened this door so he could redeem himself. Out of hundreds of animal applicants, he was one of only three selected. He rose in the ranks so quickly that they even let him command a ship.

  “So what happened?” she asked.

  Falkirk took a split log from the pile and dropped it into the fire. “The official report says that I was put on medical leave. The humans wrote it that way so it wouldn’t look like they were discriminating against animals.” The truth was that Falkirk had done exactly what some of the more bigoted humans said he would do. He panicked, and almost got his entire crew killed.

  For over a year of training, Falkirk endured taunts from the humans who would never trust a dog, as well as condescension from those who viewed him as a novelty, a token. He preferred the outright bigots—at least he knew where he stood with them. The nicer ones said things like, “You remind me of my dog.” Or they constantly harped on his newfound intelligence. “You can’t learn how to fly this thing overnight,” they said. “The Queen can’t just zap it into your brain like last time.”

  On his second flight after earning his wings, the Vesuvius became trapped in a lightning storm. Falkirk tried to elevate it above the system, only to stall one of the engines in the process. And then his entire body went stiff, something that had never happened before. The officers on the bridge shouted at him. What are your orders, sir? His fingers coiled around the metal railing near the captain’s chair. As one of the junior officers took command, the guards pried Falkirk’s hands from the railing and carted him out. A few weeks later, he was reassigned to Special Operations. “I was chasing ghosts and dead ends until I came across you,” he said.

  Suddenly, she felt so small. These animals had been so brave. They lived so many lives while she hid in the forest. She had never failed, like he had. And thus she had barely lived.

  D’Arc discussed her own military training without mentioning Mort(e). She thought of her friend with every step she took, every furtive glance behind her, often with a smile or a sigh, occasionally with a blank stare into the campfire. In the mornings, after waking from dreams of the ranch, it felt like something had been lost, another threshold entered right before the door slammed behind her. Things changed, people changed. She would change, too, no matter how much it hurt, no matter what was left of her on the other side.

  On the fifth day of walking, after the clouds broke, D’Arc spotted an airship through the tree branches. The ship traveled at such a low altitude that she could make out its propellers and gondola. “The Vesuvius?” she asked.

  “Upheaval,” Falkirk said. Unlike the double-barreled shape of the Vesuvius, the Upheaval had only one balloon. The smaller ship was faster, more heavily armed—a destroyer that accompanied the carrier. D’Arc and Falkirk followed the blimp to the edge of the forest and along a river. Twice she tripped because she couldn’t take her eyes off it. At dusk, when Falkirk proposed that they set up camp and eat, D’Arc said they should keep following the ship. Falkirk refused. “You’ll get used to them,” he said.

  “Why don’t they use one of those airships for the expedition?”

  “For the same reason the bats only sent one of their kind. Not worth the risk.”

  “Seems like a waste to have those amazing ships and never go anywhere.”

  Falkirk rubbed his hands. “If we’re going to work together, I might as well be blunt with you.” Ever since the Union’s failed attempt to seize part of the wolf territory, the airships served mainly as reconnaissance vehicles, constantly circling the perimeter. The wolves regarded the animals in Hosanna as traitors for working with the humans. Stories circulated about the wolves capturing people, making them eat their comrades. It was a dangerous world, the kind of world that, deep
down, many of the animals wanted.

  In the morning, D’Arc woke Falkirk and asked if he was ready to get moving again. “We’re not going to catch the Upheaval,” he yawned. In the predawn light, D’Arc dismantled the camp as noisily as she could. She slammed the pots, splashed water onto the dying cinders, broke twigs for no reason. Falkirk glared at her. “All right, Admiral,” he said. “You win.”

  As the morning fog evaporated, D’Arc spotted the ship again, much closer than she expected. They arrived at a bend in the river, where the canopy opened to reveal the entire sky. Upheaval came to a halt and spun clockwise, its nose pointing at D’Arc. A warm sensation began in her chest and spread outward, like a blossoming flower. This world was so full of magic. Life was not simply a struggle to survive. There was a future to explore.

  “Do you see it?” Falkirk asked.

  “Yes!”

  “No,” he said, pointing at the horizon. “Do you see it?”

  She had been so fixated on the ship that she did not notice the city right in front of her. Beyond the next cluster of trees, the river swelled against a stone monolith. The great dam. South of that, the city of Hosanna spread into the valley, mostly brick and tan concrete and gray asphalt, glinting with silver from the skyscrapers. Hundreds of windmills spun furiously, some modern and sleek, others made of wood. The airship hovered, preparing to dock on the remains of an office building. And there was movement. Cars and trucks. When they got closer, she would see people. Closer still, she would meet them, all separate worlds unto themselves, each with their own memories and dreams.

  “Come on,” Falkirk said. “The city is waiting.”

  Hours later, D’Arc sat on a bench in the lobby of Tranquility headquarters. While Falkirk chatted with the rat who operated the main desk, D’Arc took in the scenery. People came and went through the massive swinging doors. Off to the side, a family of rats pleaded with a feline officer, who licked his paw as he listened. Two canine agents argued over which one of them had logged more hours on some assignment. When they saw D’Arc watching them, they huddled closer and whispered. Beyond the main registration area stood rows of desks, five wide and four deep. There were even some humans sitting at the desks, men and women, like the images from D’Arc’s magazines and picture books. This building must have been a warehouse or a factory before, judging from the windows that went from waist-high to the ceiling. The place was so loud, the scents so acrid and fake. Wading through the crowds on the streets to get here had been disconcerting enough, but this room seemed designed to harness the noise and aim it at everyone.