The Atomic Sea

by Jack Conner

  He neared the next mountain peak and began a pass around it. Craning his neck, he saw that the rays were just beginning to appear around the bulk of the first peak. Acting quickly, he pulled the levers that controlled the propellers. Accidently, he reduced their speed the first time, then corrected himself and whipped them to full throttle.

  To Layanna, he said “Is there any way you can help us?”

  “I can hold off the psychics, I think, but that’s all. I need food to heal. Food from the sea.”

  “The sea’s the other way, sweetcheeks,” said Hildra.

  “I think she’s aware of that.” Avery banked the dirigible around an outcropping of rock. He had to stay low, hugging the mountain, keeping its walls between him and the rays. Between him and Sheridan. Would the woman never leave him alone?

  He passed to the backside of the mountain, put it between the dirigible and the rays, and aimed for the next one. The sun had vanished to the west, but a hint of crimson still gleamed on the horizon. Before long he would not be able to see the mountains well enough to risk getting close to them. He hoped that meant the rays would have difficulty seeing the dirigible, but he didn’t count on it.

  The sun’s light finally vanished, and the wind gusted colder and more frigid. For the next few hours, Avery guided the dirigible to and around the dim bulks of the Borghese, aiming toward Ungraessot, land of the God-Emperor, which lay just over the mountains to the east. By starlight and moonslight, Avery could not see the peaks around him clearly and kept his distance, but not too distant. He had always to keep the mountains between the dirigible and the rays. After several hours, he grew exhausted and Janx relieved him. He awoke to find that Hildra had relieved Janx, and Janx slept fitfully under a blanket to the rear of the ship, with Layanna in the bow looking forlorn.

  “How long was I out?” Avery said, stretching. The horizon seemed lighter. Had he slept the whole night through?

  Hildra shrugged. She gripped the wheel with hook and hand, eyes on the next peak. The sky behind them gave no sign of the rays. “Dunno. A long time, I guess. Janx piloted forever. An’ I’ve been at it a good while.” She yawned widely and blinked her eyes with exhaustion. Hildebrand lay curled on her shoulder, his little chest rising in and out.

  “I’ll spell you,” Avery said.

  “Not yet. I wanna see the sun before I sleep.”

  He helped himself to the dried foodstuffs of the Octunggen soldiers. Munching on a stale oat bar, he wondered at a race that could possess such fantastic technologies yet eat the same indifferent dried food the Ghenisan soldiers did, or close to it. He supposed Layanna’s people hadn’t felt obliged to improve on military cuisine. To wash it down, he helped himself generously to water stored in a canteen. It was stale.

  At last his attention returned to Layanna. Slowly, oddly reluctant, he made his way forward, toward the jutting prow where she lay. A pale face peeked out from the black blanket she’d wrapped herself in, and blond hair spilled over it. She cracked her eyes as he crouched over her. They were very blue.

  “I just wanted to check on you,” he said.

  She said nothing as he took her pulse and temperature. She was pale and feverish. Her veins showed like blue eels beneath her skin. Her breaths came fast and harsh, irregular.

  “Am I going to make it?” Her voice was forced and light.

  “I don’t know anything about your kind. Your body on this plane seems human, and that part, at least, is well.”

  She nodded, as if this explanation helped, though it could not possibly, and stared up at the dark sky. With a sigh, he sat down beside her and put his back to the gunwale. They shared a windy, companionable silence.

  In a low voice, she said, “I’m truly sorry I brought all this on you and your friends.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  That seemed to catch her off-guard. “But it is.”

  “No. You only did what you thought right. Remember, I’m the one that made the decision to come with you. I still don’t understand something, though.”

  She turned to look at him. “What, Doctor? What don’t you understand?”

  He gave a strained smile. “Francis. You can call me Francis.”

  She paused. “Francis.” She tried out the word. “Fran-cis. What don’t you understand, Francis?”

  “You, for a start.”

  She let out a long breath, looked away, up into the fading night. “What do you want to know? I’ve lived in Lusterqal for hundreds of years, orchestrating things, the integration of our mythology into Octung’s culture, the development of technologies that they could use. Weapons. We studied the Octunggen, learned from them. Learned about being human.”

  “You did nothing but work, in all those years?”

  “Oh, in secret I would abscond from the Temple. I would go out into the streets, pretending to be one of the people, and I would have adventures, as I thought of them. Over time I even made contacts. Friends.” A sad smile touched her face. “I had lovers. They grew old, but I stayed young. In the end, it would pain them to see me, but they could not let me go.” In a sad, soft voice she added, “I know all the graveyards in Lusterqal.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

  She patted his hand. “It’s all right. There’s nothing to say. I learned to love humanity. I wasn’t the only one.” Clouds like palls of smoke drifted across the sky, obscuring the moons, the stars, then revealing them in bursts of glory. Wind stirred her hair. Her eyes misted. Suddenly she turned to him. “Why are you here ... Francis?”

  He hadn’t expected the question, and a hitch developed in his throat.

  “I fight for this.” He reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out the item which he kept over his heart.

  The picture of Mari and Ani was bent and smudged, corners ripped away, holes torn through it. But Mari and Ani were still visible, still recognizable, their smiles still white and clean. They stared out at him from the picture, the one he had taken so long ago, the one that had looked out at him from his cabin bulkhead on the Maul, giving him comfort and strength.

  Gently, Layanna reached over and took the photograph. She stared at it for a long, quiet moment.

  “Your family?”

  He nodded. His eyes stung, and it surprised him to feel tears trying to force themselves out. Little devils. He didn’t let them come.

  “Mari and Ani were killed in an Octunggen attack,” he said. “Some sort of plague caused by a light.”

  Her brow creased, as if something troubled her. “Uls Arctulis. The Deathlight.” She handed the picture back. “Yes. I am ... familiar ... with the weapon. I am sorry.” She seemed to gather her strength and said, “My family, too, have died.”

  “How?”

  “Once I revealed myself to be a traitor, my whole line would have been ... purged. Exterminated.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Like yourself, there can be no going back for me. I can never return to my people, my home. All is denied me. The lights of Xai’nala, the shimmering gardens of Sere ... Oh, my race is wondrous, Francis. Brutal and terrible, yes, but wondrous. Beautiful. Our cities straddle dimensions, times, and so do we. Passing down a city street, we may pass through a hundred dimensions at once, a thousand, each one different second by second. Dimensions are born and die like flowers, blooming and fading all around us, through us. Our old civilization spanned the galaxy, Francis, and the galaxies or their analogues of innumerable other planes. The Luz’hai. The Forever Empire.” She hesitated. “Somewhere out there it still exists—warped, twisted, malevolent.”

  She wrapped her arms across her chest and rocked back and forth. She almost looked ready to cry.

  Avery had never seen her so open, so vulnerable. Surprising himself, he lifted an arm and, in seeming slow motion, wrapped it around her shoulders.

  She appeared equally stunned. She stiffened.

  Then, miraculously, hideously, she softened. She leaned against him. Sh
e was very warm, and, though he found the contact awkward, part of him relished it. Together they sat like that, huddled under the freezing mountain winds, while the dirigible flew on, and after a time, despite himself, he felt his eyes start to close, his mind start to drift ...

  Sounds of wonder woke him.

  Janx and Hildra had gathered on the port gunwale, staring out into the night. Avery rose, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

  “Holy fuck,” Hildra said.

  Before them, giant squids drifted through the sky, rows and rows of them. Air bladders inflated, the great beings floated over the mountains, heading north. The sky was still dark, and the squids glowed. In a thousand fantastic colors that shifted moment by moment, the squids’ phosphorescent bodies shown brilliantly against the pale stars and black sky. In shades of purple and pink and violent crimson, in electric green and throbbing fuscia, in aquamarine and ruby and cyan, the squids glowed, and their hues bathed the peaks below, a shifting kaleidoscope of color.

  There were hundreds of squids, each a hundred feet long or more, and they bobbed effortlessly through the air, like phantoms, like gods. Colors would strobe down tentacles like flashing lights, then blink off, then the torpedo-like head of one massive giant would burn with vermillion, and then a dozen more would follow it. Whole forests of color blinked, flushed, flickered out, then burst into new glory.

  “It’s beautiful,” Layanna said.

  “They migrate north every winter,” Avery said. “No one knows why. In Hissig we have a great celebration on their return.”

  “Squid Day,” said Janx, then grunted. Casting a sideways glance at Layanna, he said, “And you did this, darlin’?”

  “We changed the oceans, yes.”

  Wind hissed and fluttered, and somewhere came the eerie hoot of a giant squid, then another. Hildra laughed, almost girlish.

  For a long time the four just stood there, staring out at the great, glowing squids as they bobbed through the skies. Thousands of tentacles swished lazily, and streamers of light glowed and flashed, coursing along surreal bodies. Avery and Layanna stood very close to each other. At last the column of squids vanished over the peaks to the north and disappeared from sight. Avery felt as if the air had gone from his lungs. He and the others still stared at the place where the squids had gone, as if hoping for one last look, until the sun rose over the mountains to the east.

  It was then that Hildra swore.

  “Octunggen!” she shouted. “Octunggen to the west!”

  Chapter 16

  Avery scrambled to the opposite gunwale, the others with him, and strained his gaze toward the west, where dim black peaks were just visible. The newly-risen sun threw crimson across the horizon, and by its glow he saw the faint glimmer of dirigibles—several, perhaps as many as ten or more. A complete raiding party. The red light coated their rounded backs, hinting at the gondolas below. It was too far away, but he knew if he were closer he would recognize the Lightning Crest on their envelopes.

  “They’ll think we’re one of them,” Avery said. “We have the same emblem and colors.”

  “Until they look through a spyglass,” Janx said.

  “That ain’t the worst of it,” Hildra called.

  She indicated the trail behind them. The bloody light of dawn fell across the shapes of rays sweeping in from the east. The great dark wedges cut the sky, trailing their long barbed tails. They had drawn very close to the dirigible over the course of the night and now were no more than six miles behind. They had ascended the skies, presumably to have a better view of their quarry—and to make it more difficult for the dirigible to put mountains between them. Even then the dirigible was nearing another snow-dusted peak, but Avery wasn’t sure it would be enough.

  And there were not just three rays. Miles behind and to either side of the main trio came another three. Sheridan must have roused the whole fleet against them. Between the iron and the fire, Avery thought.

  The lead rays seemed to have noticed the dirigible at the same time the occupants of the dirigible noticed them.

  A green light flashed from the central ray.

  Shit. It was all Avery had time to think before a green glow fell over them. Avery felt his flesh grow warm, and then lance of agony shot through him. Blisters bubbled under his flesh.

  Hildra shoved gears angrily. The dirigible jerked to the side.

  The green light faded. Avery’s boils subsided, and he inhaled a deep, shuddering breath ... but then the light fell on him again. He screamed. Janx bellowed from the stern.

  Hildra was not to be deterred. Even as a boil popped on her throat, spurting the wheel with puss and blood, she twisted it and grappled with the levers. The dirigible jerked to the side, throwing Avery against the forward gunwale. Layanna pitched up against him.

  Avery started to turn back and snap at Hildra, but then he saw what she was doing. She was aiming the dirigible at the Octunggen raiding party.

  “You’re mad!” he said. “They’ll ...”

  “They’ll what?” Hildra said. “Kill us worse than the rays?”

  She drove the dirigible at the Octunggen, but indirectly, threading between mountains to screen them from the rays and their green glare. As she flew around the broad midsection of one mountain, a press of hoary, hairy goats stared at them blankly. The animals were so close Avery could smell them. Relieved to be out of the green light, he sagged against the gunwale and absently brushed the blood of a burst boil on the back of his hand against the netting.

  Layanna was breathing heavily, and her skin was reddened, but she showed no signs of the boils that had deviled Avery and the others.

  “You’re immune,” he said.

  “We didn’t give the Octunggen weapons that could be used against us—at least, not easily. Obviously they’ve found ways.” She touched her side where Sheridan’s bullet had found her. “Although I believe that gun was designed by my kind ... to kill me.”

  The craft lurched again, and Hildra said, “Hang on.”

  She had rounded the last mountain in her path and flew the dirigible right at the Octunggen raiding party, which appeared to have just left one mountain behind and were drifting toward another.

  “This’ll be interesting,” said Janx, the cords of his neck bunching.

  The Octunggen noticed them, and their ships fanned out, creating a half circle in the sky that pointed toward the approaching dirigible. Surely they would also notice the Lightning Crest on its balloon, Avery thought. But what if they look through a spyglass?

  Suddenly lights glittered among the Octunggen ships, and the half-circle realigned, pointing toward something else. Avery glanced back. The rays had reentered his line-of-sight. Here it comes. He braced himself, expecting another blast of the green light. Instead, the three rays, who had formed their own triangle formation, now pointed straight at the Octunggen. They had to be dealt with first.

  The lone dirigible shot toward the raiding party, and Avery’s group drew so close he could at last make out individual Octunggen soldiers in their crisp black uniforms, moving along the gondolas amongst bulky machines, some cranking gears, others stabbing buttons. Unwieldy lenses swung toward the approaching rays. Strange, bulbous barrels bristled.

  The Octunggen gave a cry of welcome as the dirigible entered their circle. Then, almost immediately, they stopped what they were doing and stared at the occupants of the vessel. Avery had the distinct pleasure of seeing looks of shock, anger and utter bafflement cross their faces. Then the little dirigible passed through their ranks and out the other side. Its occupants flew on, away from the Octunggen, toward the west.

  Avery half-expected the Octunggen to break up and fly after them, not simply to pursue them but to escape the advancing rays.

  “They’ve got to run,” he said, staring at them and the massive wedges of the rays approaching from the east. “They have to.” The rays could simply hold more weapons than the dirigibles could, and half the weapons would be those stolen or pirated from
Octung. Not to mention the psychics ...

  “They won’t run.” There was a note of pride in Layanna’s voice. “Not while there’s hope of victory. They are Octunggen.”

  With shocking suddenness, battle commenced between the in-sweeping rays and the half-circle of dirigibles. The air between the parties blurred. Lights flashed. A weird roar of some machine thundering reached Avery’s ears and staggered him backward against the gunwale. One of the dirigibles erupted in blue fire. Breaking into pieces, it plummeted from the sky, soldiers and odd weapons spilling out of it like corn kernels from a split sack. The balloon exploded. Other dirigibles flamed, too, scattering the mountains below with fiery debris, some of it human. A few of the dirigibles simply drifted off, their crews disoriented by a psychic blast.

  The Octunggen were not to be outdone. A great ripple of air blurred into existence before the lead dirigible, then the others. The blurring intensified and shimmered, as if the dirigibles were combining their energies. At last the blur rolled outward, gaining speed, straight toward the ray that took up the right rear point of the triangle.

  When the blur reached the ray, it was as though a huge cleaver sliced the creature cleanly down the middle. The vast being, the thing that stretched a mile or more and trailed its tail out for miles behind it, divided in two. Dark ichor and unidentifiable fluids spurted from the wound even as the two halves fell from the sky, spilling its host of soldiers and equipment as it did. Avery saw them from afar, hundreds of men like tiny dots plummeting to their deaths. The massive sections of the ray fell with them, and Avery felt unsteady at the sight. The gargantuan halves of the animal struck the mountaintop, and ichor and snow exploded upward. Rockslides thundered down the slopes, and Avery saw the ruins of an old keep obliterated by the avalanche.

  Sheridan, he thought. I wonder if Sheridan was aboard that ray.

  For some perplexing reason, he hoped not.

  The dirigibles and rays continued their battle, and Avery could only stare in awe. One dirigible seemed to flicker, blink out of existence, then flicker back on, again and again, faster and faster, before it finally winked out entirely. Another dirigible seemed to pass half into another dimension, then return utterly leeched of color, black and white, and so brittle that it disintegrated like charred wood, her men with her, in the next gust of wind. The Octunggen struck back, and it was a fantastic, awful battle. Thunderous cracks blasted, and the air shivered horribly.