The three wings of raptor scouts fell all around him, their long dark bodies streamlined darts slowly twisting as they aimed their arm-long beaks plummeting down through the thick blue air. Uagen’s ankle motors hummed gently, keeping his pace up to that of the sleekly profiled raptor scouts. 974 Praf clung to his back, her body laid along his from nape to rump, her wings wrapped round his chest. She would have held them up if she’d dived separately. Her embrace was tight, and Uagen had already felt himself becoming breathless and had to ask her to slacken her grip to let him breathe.
He had half hoped the other dirigible behemothaur might have disappeared, but it was suddenly there; an alarmingly extensive area of darker blue deep beneath them. Uagen felt his heart sink, and wondered if the creature clamped to his back could feel his fear.
He tried to decide if he was really ashamed of being afraid, and decided that he was not. Fear was there for a purpose. It was wired into any creature that had not completely turned its back on its evolutionary inheritance and so remade itself in whatever image it coveted. The more sophisticated you became, the less you relied on fear and pain to keep you alive; you could afford to ignore them because you had other means of coping with the consequences if things went badly.
He wondered how imagination fitted in. He had a feeling it ought to. Any organism could learn to avoid experiences of a sort that had earlier resulted in damage and therefore pain, but with real intelligence came a more sophisticated form of anticipation of damage to oneself which pre-empted the injury. There should be a set of glyphs in this, he decided. He would work on them later, assuming he survived.
He looked up. Yoleus was invisible, its vast bulk lost in the scattering haze of air above. All he could see up there was the blob that was the infrared signalling pod and its attendant raptor scouts, falling after the main force as fast as possible. Around him, tearing down towards the vast blue shadow beneath, two hundred sleek blue-black shapes rustled and whistled in the thick, warm air.
It seemed like only moments later that those shapes were all suddenly expanding, stretching out and grabbing at the atmosphere with their great, dark-ribbed wings. 974 Praf kicked away from his back and fell separately, wings half extended.
Uagen could see detail on the upper surface of the dirigible behemothaur beneath; scars and gouges on the forests of the creature’s back and tattered fins a hundred metres tall trailing strips of gauzy material for kilometres behind in the creature’s languid slipstream. Some fins were missing altogether, and towards the rear of the enormous shape a huge chunk appeared to have been scooped away, as though bitten out by something even larger.
“Looks pretty chewed up, doesn’t it?” Uagen shouted to 974 Praf.
She turned her head slightly towards him, tacking slowly towards him as she said, “The Yoleus believes that such damage is unprecedented in living memory.”
Uagen just nodded, then recalled that dirigible behemothaurs lived for tens of millions of years, at least. That was a fairly long time to be without precedent.
He looked down. The scarred, curved back of the unnamed behemothaur rose up to meet them. There was a lot of activity there now, Uagen saw. The dying creature had been discovered by more than just one diving human-simian and a few falficores.
It had been like a horrific cross between cancer and civil war. The entire ecosystem that was the dirigible behemothaur Sansemin was tearing itself apart. Now others were joining in.
They had discovered its name through description. 974 Praf had flown round it, recording any distinguishing marks not altered or obliterated by the destruction taking place, then landed on the little hummock of naked envelope skin high on its back where the raptor scout troupe had established its primary base. The Interpreter had communicated its findings via the giant seed-shaped signalling pod in the centre of the hastily established compound. The pod’s infrared light had found Yoleus, tens of kilometres above, and then received the reply a little later. According to the library memories Yoleus shared with its kind, the dying behemothaur was called Sansemin.
Sansemin had always been an outsider, a renegade, almost an outlaw. It had disappeared from polite society thousands of years ago and was presumed to be haunting the less hospitable and less fashionable volumes of the airsphere, perhaps alone, possibly in the company of the small number of other misfit behemothaurs known to exist. There had been a few hazy, unconfirmed sightings of the creature over the first several centuries of its self-imposed exile, but nothing for the last few.
Now it had been rediscovered, but it was at war with itself and about to die.
Flocks of falficores surrounded the giant in squabbling clouds, feeding off its foliage and outer skins. Smerines and phuelerids, the largest winged creatures in the airsphere, divided their time between the living flesh of the behemothaur and the swarming clusters of falficores driven to recklessness by the sheer glut of food on offer. The sleekly bulbous bodies of two ogrine disseisors—a rare form of lithe behemothaur only a hundred metres in length and the world’s largest predator—swam through the air in tremendous sinuous flicks, dipping to tear pieces from the body of Sansemin and snapping up handfuls of careless falficores and even the occasional smerine and phuelerid.
Tendon-strutted fragments of behemothaur skin fell into the blueness below like dark sails torn from cyclone-struck clippers; puffs of gas made brief, dispersing vapour clouds in the air as the colossal creature’s outer ballonets and gas sacs were ruptured; the torn bodies of falficores, smerines and phuelerids tumbled in bloody cart-wheeling spirals into the abyss, their screams fright-eningly close in the compacted depth of air yet nearly drowned out in the vast noise of frenzied feeding going on all about.
The raptor scouts, cloud attackers, envelopian defenders and other creatures which were part of Sansemin’s dispersed self and that would normally easily have kept such aggressors at bay were nowhere to be seen. The remains of a few had been discovered where they had fallen and been picked clean by others. The most telling pair of skeletons had been found with their jaws clamped around the other’s neck.
Uagen Zlepe stood on the seemingly solid surface of the dirigible behemothaur’s vast back, looking out over a landscape of tattered, withered skin foliage being torn apart by falficore flocks. He stood beside the seven-metre-wide bulk of the signalling pod. It was anchored to the envelope’s surface by a dozen small hooks made from falficore talons and tended to by a handful of Deciders nearly identical to 974 Praf.
Spread in a circle about them were a hundred of Yoleus’ raptor scouts, forming a living defensive barrier which was patrolled from above by another fifty or sixty of the creatures, flying slow circuits. So far they had repelled all attacks and had not lost any of their number; even one of the ogrine disseisors, obviously intrigued by the activity round the signalling pod, had turned tail when confronted by twenty of the raptor scouts in attack formation and returned instead to the easier pickings on offer all over the dying behemothaur’s surface.
Two hundred metres away across Sansemin’s back, near the knobbled ridge of a longeron spine, a smerine swooped down, scattering the smaller creatures in a blizzard of piercing cries; it thudded into a giant wound in the behemothaur’s skin; Uagen saw the flesh around the tear ripple under impact. The predator flapped its twenty-metre wings and dipped its long head, flaying the exposed tissue.
A gas sac, severed from its supporting structure, wobbled out of the spreading wound and into the air. It began to climb. The smerine looked up but let it go; the falficore flock above attacked it, screeching, until it punctured and jetted slowly off, deflating in a long exhaling scream of gas and scattering enraged falficores behind it.
There was a thud at his feet. Uagen jumped. “Oh, Praf,” he said as the Interpreter stowed its wings. It had gone with a dozen of the raptor scouts to investigate the interior of the behemothaur. “Find anything?” he asked.
974 Praf watched the distant gas sac as it finally fell deflated into the foliage forest near
Sansemin’s upper fore-fins. “We have found something. Come and look.”
“Inside?” Uagen asked nervously.
“Yes.”
“Is it safe? Umm, in there?”
974 Praf looked up at him.
“Umm. I mean, umm. The central gas bladders. The hydrogen core. I thought there was a possibility those might, that is, it might. Umm.”
“An explosion is possible,” 974 Praf said in a matter-of-fact manner. “This would be of a catastrophic nature.”
Uagen felt himself gulp. “Catastrophic?”
“Yes. The dirigible behemothaur Sansemin would be destroyed.”
“Yes. And. Umm. Us?”
“Too.”
“Too?”
“We too would be destroyed.”
“Yes. Well, then.”
“This outcome will grow more likely with delay. Therefore delay is not wise. Expedition is advisable.” 974 Praf shuffled its feet. “Extremely advisable.”
“Praf,” Uagen said, “do we have to do this?”
The creature rocked back on its heel talons and squinted up at him. “Of course. It is duty to the Yoleus.”
“And if I say no?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if I refuse to go inside and look at whatever it is you’ve found?”
“Then our investigations will take longer.”
Uagen stared at the Interpreter. “Longer.”
“Of course.”
“What have you found?”
“We do not know.”
“Then—”
“It is a creature.”
“A creature?”
“Many creatures. All dead but one. Of an unknown type.”
“What sort of unknown type?”
“That is what is unknown.”
“Well, what does it look like?”
“It looks a little like you.”
The creature looked like an alien child’s doll, thrown against a barbed wall and left hanging there. It was long, with a tail that was half its body length. The head was broad, furred and—he thought—striped, though in the darkness, using only his IR sense, he couldn’t tell what colours its pelt might be. The creature’s big, forward-facing eyes were closed. It had a thick neck, broad shoulders, two arms about the size of a large human’s but with very wide, heavy hands which looked more like paws. Only a dirigible behemothaur or one of its acolytes would have imagined it looked much like Uagen Zlepe.
It was one of twenty similar forms strung out along one wall of the chamber. All the others were dead and rotting.
Below the creature’s arms, supported by a second, still wider set of shoulders, rested what at first appeared to be a giant flap of furred skin. Looking closer, Uagen realised this was a limb. A dark pad of toughened skin extended across its end in an 8 shape, and stubby hints of toes or claws dotted the perimeter of the pad. Below the torso, two powerful-looking legs hung from a broad set of hips. A furred mound probably concealed genitals of some sort. The tail was striped. One of the root-cables Uagen had seen attached to the raptor scout in the similar chamber in Yoleus led from the back of the creature’s head and into the ribbed wall behind.
The smell in here was even worse than it had been in Yoleus. The journey had been horrific. Dirigible behemothaurs were riddled with fissures, chambers, cavities and tunnels disposed so that their collection of tributary fauna could carry out their various tasks. Many of these were large enough to admit raptor scouts and it was down one of these that they had journeyed from an entrance behind the behemothaur’s rear dorsal fin complex. The effects of the creature’s own attendant entities turning against it were everywhere. Great gouges and tears had been slashed through the tunnel’s walls, making the curved floor slick with liquid in some places and cloyingly sticky in others; flaps of decaying tissue hung from the ceiling like obscene banners, and rents in the floor could swallow a leg, a wing, or even—certainly in Uagen’s case—a whole body.
Here and there smaller creatures still feasted upon the body of the being they had served; other corpses littered the floor of the winding tunnel, and where the two raptor scouts accompanying 974 Praf and Uagen Zlepe down into the body of the behemothaur could do so without delaying their progress, they swiped out at the parasites and tore them to pieces, leaving them twitching on the floor behind.
Finally they had arrived at the chamber where the behemothaur sought knowledge from its self-kin and guests. A great tremor ran through the cavern just as they entered, making the walls shake and dislodging some of the half-rotted bodies.
Two of the specialist raptor scouts had clawed their way up the wall beside the creature which still appeared to be alive. They were intent on an examination of its head where the cable root disappeared into it. One of the raptor scouts held something small and glittering.
“Do you know the nature of this being?” 974 Praf asked. Uagen stared up at the creature. “No,” he said. “Well, not properly. It looks vaguely familiar. I might have seen it on screen or something. But I don’t know what it is.”
“It is not of your sort?”
“Well, of course not. Look at it. It’s bigger, it’s got enormous eyes and a totally different sort of head. I mean, umm, I’m not of my sort, not originally, if you know what I mean,” he said, turning to Praf, who blinked up at him. “But the main thing, umm, difference, is that middle bit. That looks like a sort of extra leg and foot. Well, like two that have grown together. Do you see those, ah, ridges? I’ll bet those are the bones of what used to be two separate legs in its forebears, before it evolved into a single limb.”
“It is not known to you?”
“Hmm? Umm, sorry. No.”
“Do you think if it can be made to speak it will be able to be understood in its talking by you?”
“What?”
“It is not dead. It is linked to the mind of the Sansemin but the mind of the Sansemin is dead. But the creature is not dead. If we are able to sever its link to the mind of the Sansemin, which is dead, then it might be able to speak. If this were to happen, would you be able to understand that which it says?”
“Oh. Umm. I doubt it.”
“That is unfortunate.” 974 Praf was silent for a moment. “And yet this means that we would be wise to sever its link soon rather than later, and that is good because then we would be less likely to die when the Sansemin suffers its catastrophic explosion.”
“What?” Uagen yelped. The Interpreter started to repeat itself, talking slightly slower, but he waved both hands at it. “Never mind! Sever its links now; let’s get out quick! I mean, quickly!”
“This will be done,” 974 Praf said. It babbled and clicked at the two raptor scouts clinging to the wall by the side of the alien creature. They turned and jabbered back. There seemed to be a disagreement.
Another tremor shook the whole chamber. The floor under Uagen’s feet quaked. He put his arms out to each side to balance himself and felt his mouth go dry. There was a draught, then a distinct breeze of warm air, scented with a smell he suspected was methane. It took most of the smell of rotting flesh away, but he felt sickened with terror. His skin had gone cold and clammy. “Please let’s go,” he whispered.
The raptor scouts on either side of the hanging creature did something behind its head. It slumped forward and down, then the thing trembled as though shivering and brought its head back up. It worked its jaw, then opened its eyes. They were very large and black.
It looked around, at the raptor scouts on either side, at the rest of the chamber, then at 974 Praf, then at Uagen Zlepe. It made a sound, or set of sounds, but it was no language that Uagen had ever heard before.
“This is not a speech-form which is known to you?” the Interpreter asked. On the barbed wall of living, dying tissue, the alien creature’s eyes went suddenly wide.
“No,” Uagen said. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me, I’m afraid. Umm, look, can we please, please get the hell out of here?”
“You, you the
re,” gasped the creature on the wall, in accented but recognisable Marain. It was staring at Uagen, who was staring right back. “Help me,” it wheezed.
“Wh—wh—what?” Uagen heard himself say.
“Please,” the creature said. “Culture. Agent.” It swallowed with obvious pain and croaked, “Plot. Assassin. Need. Get word. Please. Help. Urgent. Very. Urgent.”
Uagen tried to speak but could not. There was a smell of something burning in the wind blowing through the chamber.
974 Praf adjusted her footing as another huge tremor shook the chamber and made the floor swell. She looked from Uagen to the creature on the wall and back again. “This speech-form is known to you?” she asked.
Uagen nodded.
The Memory of Running
The figure seemed to coalesce out of nothing, out of the air. Anyone or anything watching would have needed more than natural senses to have noticed the slow fall of dust spread out over an hour of time and a radial kilometre of the grasslands; that anything out of the ordinary was happening would only have become obvious a little later when an odd sort of wind seemed to stir itself out of the gentle breeze, disturbing the grass on the broad plain and producing what appeared to be a slowly revolving dust devil, whirling quietly in the air and gradually shrinking and tightening and darkening and speeding up until, suddenly, it disappeared, and where it had been there stood what looked like a tall and graceful Chelgrian female, dressed in the country day clothes of the Given caste.
The first thing she did when she felt she was complete was to crouch down and dig into the earth beneath the grass with her fingers. Her claws slid out, spearing the ground. She ripped out a handful of the soil and grass. She held the handful of earth and vegetation up to her broad, dark nose and sniffed slowly.
She was waiting. She had nothing better to do for the moment, and so she thought that she would take a good hard look and a good long sniff at the ground she stood on.
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