The Atomic Sea

by Jack Conner

  No, Avery thought. Please no, please no—

  Sheridan came within range. She wasted no time, but checked the slide, thumbed the safety off, and raised it to sight on Layanna—

  Avery began to throw himself out from behind the machine and fire at her. He didn’t expect to hit her, but he might distract her long enough for Layanna to send off her message. Of course, Sheridan would probably shoot him for the trouble. Before he could so much as take a bead on her, however, one of the freed men lunged at her, a man with suckers growing along his arms, and she had no choice but to dodge aside and strike him down, clubbing the butt of her pistol against the side of his head.

  Other mutants swarmed all around. Now that the Octunggen’s submachine guns had run dry, the men and women that would have been sacrificed to the Elder were emboldened to throw themselves on the soldiers with greater furor and numbers. Even Sheridan could not escape their attacks. Desperate close-quarters fighting broke out. The former captives attacked with gun and blade, fist and lance, and the orderly advance of the Octunggen became a writhing mob.

  Avery stared at the chaos, unnerved and out of his element. He had to do something, before Sheridan could break away, and he had to do it now. He hurried forward, gun clutched in hand.

  Janx stumbled past him, reeling backward. Three priests sliced at the big man with bladed weapons, and fresh blood trickled down his chest. He was armed only with a knife and barely fending them off. Trying not to think about it, Avery shot one in the back. As that one collapsed, the one next to him turned to look, and Janx sprang, stabbing him in the throat. The third lunged, and Janx hurled himself backward. Avery wanted to stay and help, but there was no time.

  Not far away a priest penned Hildra to the ground, one hand around her neck and the other grabbing her hook arm, preventing her from using it. She beat at his face, gouging long furrows in his cheek, and Hildebrand shrieked and bit at his skull, but the man was determined and little by little Hildra was losing strength. Avery wanted to shoot the man in the back, but he was afraid the bullet would pass through and hit Hildra. Instead he took careful aim and fired at the man’s arm. His first shot missed, but his second clipped the man’s elbow. The man yelled and released Hildra’s hook arm. She plunged the hook into his gut, and his eyes went wide. As she unearthed herself from him, two more priests approached her, and Avery tried to fire at them, but the gun clicked empty. He threw it away.

  He searched for Sheridan. The Octunggen were wresting back control, or some of it, from the mob. Guns fired, and sparks exploded from electric sticks. The freed captives did not give up.

  Sheridan picked herself off the floor, wiped a stream of blood from her face, blew the hair out of her eyes, and raised her gun toward Layanna—

  Avery knocked the pistol aside and punched her in the face. Her leg came up and smashed into his knee, almost breaking it. He stumbled back, his grip so firmly on the gun that he tore it loose from her gasp. One of her men tried to shoot Avery, but a freed captive cracked his head with a stolen helmet, then set upon him.

  Sheridan’s eyes took in Avery and widened. When her shock faded, she merely said, “So. You kept the appointment.”

  Ani. “Looks that way.”

  Sheridan stared at him with an expression he could find no warmth in, no trace of all their nights together. Had it all meant so little to her, or had she simply become adept at masking her true self?

  “Except it’s not you that has Layanna,” she said, “it’s the Mnuthra. I’m afraid that won’t do your daughter any good.”

  He had been trying to reverse the gun in his grasp, fumbling as he did so, but just as he straightened it out Sheridan kicked it out of his hand. Before he could recover, she punched him in the throat, nearly crushing his larynx. Choking, he lashed out, striking her in the jaw. Her eyes blazed.

  He tripped over a corpse and sprawled backward. Felt his teeth click. Tasted blood on his tongue. He rolled aside as Sheridan’s boot came down at his head. He grabbed up the lance of a fallen priest. He didn’t know how to activate the sparking tip, so he swung the shaft at Sheridan’s legs. Swearing, she jumped back. Began scanning the ground for a weapon.

  Avery climbed to his feet and thrust at her with the lance. Its tip was sharp, if nothing else. She glared at him and moved backward, out of range. She slipped in a pool of blood and nearly fell.

  Behind her the Octunggen line was reduced to a shambles. It was an all-out brawl. Almost all the prisoners had been freed, and there were more of them than priests and Octunggen combined. Some of the soldiers still carried weapons with ammunition, and gunfire sounded periodically over the shouts and screams. Others had had their guns taken away by former prisoners, and more than one soldier flew backward riddled by gunfire.

  Avery saw the fallen Octunggen pistol and launched himself at it as Sheridan recovered her footing. He slid across the floor, feeling something sticky smear his chest and throat, and grabbed the weapon triumphantly. He spun about to aim it at Sheridan just as she grabbed up another pistol and aimed it at him.

  Still choking, his head spinning, he locked his gaze with hers. Hair fell before her eyes, and she downed quick, fast breaths. Her cheeks were red. Somewhere behind her something burned, but she didn’t seem to notice. They stared at each other, guns pointed.

  Gingerly, Avery picked himself off the ground and put himself between Sheridan and Layanna.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Sheridan said. “Remember Ani.”

  Avery’s eyes stung, and he suddenly felt very heavy, very slow.

  “Remember Ani,” Sheridan repeated.

  She stepped forward, and Avery stumbled back—toward the Altar.

  “I ...” Avery opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. He wanted to shoot Sheridan but knew that he could not. Their nights together might mean nothing to her, but they did to him.

  His heel struck a body, and he carefully stepped over it, kept edging backward, as Sheridan pressed forward.

  “You can have her back,” Sheridan said. “You can have your Ani back. Just think about it. She would be safe, and loved, and you would be happy together. You would be a hero of the Lightning Crown, and we would put you up somewhere special. A mansion, perhaps, right in Lusterqal. All the little toys Ani could want. We have the best bakeries in Octung. Does she have a sweet tooth? She would love it. And, if you wanted, I would ... visit you occasionally. If you liked.”

  He stared at her, shaking his head. She almost sounded as if she would have liked it, to visit him, and he remembered their few happy times together, remembered feeling that warmth that almost was. More, though, he remembered Ani.

  He remembered his little girl. He remembered taking long walks with her, sometimes with Mari, sometimes not, through the forests and mountains near Benical. Ani had loved nature and would listen avidly as Avery told her every animal’s name and habits, and then she would promptly rename them. She said she wanted to be a biologist someday, wanted to work with nature. She had screamed like a baby the first time she fell off her bicycle, and seeing all the blood that wept from her knee had nearly given Avery a coronary. It didn’t matter that he saw worse than that every day at work; she was his daughter. But after he put on the bandage, she climbed right back on and pedaled away, faster this time, and laughing. Somehow he had taken her pain into himself, and she no longer seemed to feel it. Later, when she had grown sick, he had tried the same trick, for her and her mother, but it hadn’t worked any longer. Avery remembered cradling her in his arms as she faded, day by day, remembered staring into her eyes as they lost their luster, as she ... as ...

  Suddenly he couldn’t see Sheridan anymore. All he could see was one big blur. Everything was misty and runny. Through it all a Sheridan-shaped smear stepped forward, and he heard the awful words—the wonderful words—“She lives, Francis. You can have her back. Still. Even now. Even after all you’ve done. Just turn that gun around and shoot the bitch.”

  Avery blinked and
wiped at his eyes. Slowly the world cleared. He felt like he couldn’t get breath fast enough. He could hear his heartbeat behind his eardrums.

  “Ani,” he wheezed.

  Sheridan nodded, almost sadly. “She’s yours, Doctor. Only turn that gun around.”

  Avery felt as if he’d lost all strength. He wanted to sink to his knees and melt away, like the victims of the crustaceans back in Hissig. He didn’t think he had the strength to hold the gun any longer. Didn’t have the strength to make the decision. Ani, how could he not choose Ani?

  The chaos of the rest of the room seemed very far away as Sheridan stepped forward again, and he stepped back. His heel struck the first step leading up to the Altar. Behind him hovered Layanna. Around him spread the ring of machines.

  “Choose!” Sheridan said. “Your daughter or the bitch!”

  Avery closed his eyes. The whole war had come down to this one moment. No one else could help him. It was all up to him. Time seemed to slow, even stop, and the screams nearby seemed miles away.

  By the time he opened his eyes, he’d decided.

  He swiveled his gun and fired. The round tore through the extradimensional machine Sheridan was standing near. Sparks exploded, and she threw her hands before her face and lunged aside. Avery fired again, and the machine erupted. He leapt backward, feeling the heat blister his face. He shot another of the machines, and another. Fires spread from carapace-like bulk to carapace-like bulk. The flames turned green and blue, white and crimson. Strange fires ringed the Altar.

  Above, Layanna slumped across the black slab, and her otherworldly self drained away. Avery rushed up to her, afraid that his destroying the machines had interrupted her at her task, even afraid that he had hurt her. She looked weak and exhausted. Her other-self had burned away the last vestiges of the slime from the aquarium, and she embraced him with trembling arms. Her skin felt hot, and it was flushed and sweaty.

  “It’s done,” she breathed. “It’s done.”

  Her voice was so strained that he felt the words more than heard them, soft warm puffs in his ear. As soon as they registered, relief filled him, and he embraced her tightly.

  “Wonderful!” he said.

  The whole Temple shook, and Layanna screamed.

  “He’s here!” she said. “The Elder is here!”

  * * *

  The halls trembled to the movement of the Elder, and dust drifted down from the ceiling. Screams filtered in from the hallways, echoing up from below.

  “We don’t have long,” Layanna said.

  There was something else wrong, too. Around Avery, beneath him, through him, the dais throbbed. All the machines had been wired to the Altar, and with the machines in flames something had gone wrong. Avery felt the pressure seep up through his feet, felt it press against his eardrums, against his tongue.

  “Something’s off,” he said, as he helped Layanna to her feet.

  She stared around her, at the flaming machines. “You broke it. Broke the connection.” She looked ill. “You made a fissure.”

  “Is that bad?”

  The machines hummed and shook louder all about them. Sheridan must have realized it, too, as Avery saw her running to her remaining troops and shouting for them to follow her out. They fled the room, fighting as they went.

  From below came a sound of great weight and movement. Avery could almost feel the Temple rock from side to side. Strange thoughts and sensations spun through his head, and he saw colors he had never seen before, and smelled scents—scents—that nearly drove reason from his head.

  “The Elder’s approaching,” Layanna said.

  Janx and Hildra rushed up, breathless and drenched in blood. Janx had a bloody lip and Hildra a black eye, along with numerous other contusions. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” said Janx, and Hildra added, “And he means now!” Hildebrand screeched from her shoulder.

  Moving in the direction opposite the one Sheridan had taken, Avery led Layanna down the stairs of the dais and across the carnage-strewn chamber to the other entrance. As soon as they reached it, a great grinding noise filled the air, along with powerful emotions and fragrances. The few priests still in the Altar Room prostrated themselves before the far entrance. Strange lights bathed the walls beyond, spilling inside, some of them quite beautiful, drawing closer and closer, brighter and brighter, pulsing as if in time to some fantastic heart.

  Avery, despite himself, hung back; he wanted to see the Elder. Just a glimpse ...

  Layanna pulled him along, and Janx and Hildra jostled by on either side.

  “No time to stop, Doc,” Janx said.

  With walls shaking all around them, and somewhere screams still echoing—though from whom it was hard to say—they ran. They reached one of the exits, and Avery felt the stir of wind on his face. He stepped outside onto the bridge—

  Janx and Hildra pulled him back. Blinking, he stared. The bridge was in flames and falling toward the city below. Former captives on the opposite side screamed in triumph, perhaps thinking Avery and the others to be priests in pursuit.

  “Idiots!” Hildra said. “They’ve trapped us.”

  “Maybe we can reach another bridge in time,” Avery said. It was their only chance, and they continued through the halls.

  They almost stumbled directly into the fray.

  Masses of former captives wrestled with priests and Octunggen soldiers directly before an opening in the outer wall of the temple. There must have been three dozen combatants. A priest stumbled into Avery, blood running from his jaw, and Janx tossed him aside. A former captive with a jagged knife through the side of her throat nonetheless beat an Octunggen soldier into the floor, using a spent gun as a blunt instrument. It was a chaotic scene, and it only began to make sense when Avery saw that the opening was in fact the docking bay to a dirigible. They were fighting over who got to leave.

  Despite the chaos, a group of Octunggen were trying to cast the dirigible off. The Temple shook ever more violently.

  Janx and Hildra, navigating through the fight, stormed aboard. Avery and Layanna followed quickly behind. Layanna, still strong enough to exert her other-self to some degree, tore two Octunggen soldiers apart with her tentacles. Avery, marveling at himself, kicked one distracted trooper in the knee and knocked him to the ground, then went directly to the controls. Hildra, after dealing with another trooper, cast off.

  Someone had reached the wheel ahead of Avery. Sweaty and ragged, Sheridan stood before the console.

  “Not again,” she said tiredly.

  She launched a punch at Avery’s nose. He tried to dodge, but he was just as tired. The blow connected, and a blinding pain filled his head. He reeled back, looking about for help. Layanna in her amoeba-form was currently fending off three Octunggen who were trying to subdue her with spitting lances. Someone had struck Janx on the head and he was down, moving feebly, blood weeping from his shaven pate.

  By then the dirigible was already leaving the dock, Hildra having unmoored it. She shouted for former captives to jump across, but none did and then it was too late. Avery felt the deck lurch as the ship moved away.

  “You’re outmatched,” he told Sheridan, one hand on his nose. His knees bent as he readied himself to dodge another attack. “We have Layanna. Give up.”

  “I’m outmatched?” She grabbed up the radio mike and spoke into it in rapid-fire Octunggen.

  Avery didn’t know who she spoke to, but he rushed forward to knock the radio aside. She punched him hard in the gut and he doubled over, but not before grabbing the speaker and wrenching it from her hands. She struck him across the cheekbone.

  “Damn you,” she said, sounding as full of emotion as Avery had ever heard her. She reached for something at her belt—

  Hildra tackled her from behind and carried her to the floor.

  Avery stared at them fighting—punching and kicking and biting—and decided Hildra had a better chance at pacifying the admiral than he did. In the stern, Layanna’s amoeba-form was dwindling
as the Octunggen struck at her with their shock-sticks. Her whole self lit up with every blow, and he could see her wince through the sac and organelles. Her amoeba-self shrank with every strike. Shaking his head, Janx tried to climb to his feet.

  Meanwhile the dirigible listed to one side, drifting toward a nearby upside-down palace. The shaking of the Temple behind them was growing louder. They didn’t have much time. Seconds, if they were lucky.

  Avery moved to the wheel. He mashed gears and levers, and the craft lurched, then shot away from the Temple. He could almost feel the pressure building behind him. Building ...

  He shot the dirigible forward—

  The Temple blew.

  Whatever the Altar Room’s machines had been, however they had ripped apart dimensions to facilitate communication between gods, they had been powerful things and did not take destruction lightly. The explosion was the greatest burst of power Avery had ever felt, imagined he would ever feel. He felt the vibration in his teeth, in his bones, in his soul. The flames fanned outward in brilliant colors, blazing vermillion, dazzling ruby, a wall of turquoise, all rushing outward to engulf him. He steered the dirigible forward, riding the shockwave just ahead of the main blast. The airship shook and shuddered around him. He glanced over his shoulder to see the blast rushing toward him.

  Gradually, it fell behind. There came a tremendous groan and squeal, and the Temple, or the flaming remnants of it, collapsed onto the Arena. A tall dark figure, not Uthua but the high priest, jerked his head back to watch the great mass fall upon him, and then he was obliterated entirely by a thousand tons of rock and flame.

  Behind him Avery heard sounds of fighting, but he ignored it as he steered the dirigible around one rearing tower, then a dripping stalactite palace. He glanced once more over his shoulder to make sure there would be no second explosion—and swore.