Divergence hu-1

by Charles Sheffield

  In his agony Nenda could not see clearly. When something black flashed past him, flying through the air toward the Zardalu, he did not know what it was. He made a great effort and turned his head.

  As he did so, the tearing forces on him slackened for a moment. He realized that the flying object he had seen was Kallik.

  The Hymenopt had leapt straight out of a crouched position with all the power of her wiry legs. Her spring carried her high in the air, to the top of the head of one of Zardalu holding Nenda. Kallik’s clawed paws dug into the Zardalu’s tough hide and held there. She clutched the rounded head above the blinded eyes and the wicked beak.

  The Zardalu was reaching up with two of its tentacles, but Kallik did not flinch. The yellow sting appeared from its sheath at the bottom of her stubby abdomen. The furred Hymenopt body moved sideways an inch or two, seeking an exact position. The abdomen tilted. The sting sank with surgical precision into the Zardalu’s head, at a point exactly between the great lidded eyes. The abdomen pulsed with a full poison discharge. The sting withdrew. A moment later Kallik dropped free and scuttled back, away from the forest of threshing arms.

  The stung Zardalu made no noise, but the killing pressure around Nenda’s legs slackened at once. The uplifted tentacles wilted. the great body shuddered, then froze into position. A moment later, the paralyzed Zardalu convulsed and toppled forward. It narrowly missed J’merlia and Julius Graves and lay motionless, poised on the very brink of the steep tunnel that led to the vortex.

  And crawling above it, clinging upside down to the ceiling of the tunnel, came the great winged form of Atvar H’sial.

  The Cecropian remained hanging on the ceiling until she was past the recumbent body of the Zardalu. Then she dropped down, clear of the still-motionless tentacles, and pushed with all her strength at the hulking body. The Zardalu hung poised for a moment at the edge, then started away down the slope. Nenda heard it rolling and slithering toward the vortex at the bottom. It made no sound.

  He was glad to see it go, but that did not solve his own problem. Although he was no longer being pulled apart, Holder’s tentacle still crushed his midsection and he was being drawn steadily toward the gaping sharp-edged beak.

  He lacked the breath to cry out for help. Kallik, her sting sac temporarily emptied, had leapt at the second Zardalu, but she found herself gripped by a pair of tentacles. Then she and Nenda were being pulled together toward Holder’s beak.

  Atvar H’sial had turned from the vanished Zardalu and was watching the wild confusion in the tunnel. The yellow trumpet horns on each side of her head pointed toward Louis Nenda and Kallik as the two were pulled closer and closer to the Zardalu beak.

  Atvar H’sial crouched silent, apparently inactive.

  Only at the last moment, when Nenda was close enough to reach out and touch Holder’s blinded eyes and opening maw, did the Cecropian act.

  She took a glassy ovoid from within her wing cases. As Nenda was moved into position and the Zardalu’s maw gaped at its widest, Atvar H’sial jumped.

  Two hind limbs stabbed at Holder’s blinded eyes. That was merely a distraction, while a forelimb thrust the oval object deep into Holder’s ingestion slit. A split second after the Cecropian withdrew her arm, the maw snapped shut.

  The Zardalu emitted a strange, quivering scream. The great body jerked full upright. The tentacles holding Nenda and Kallik went limp. And as he dropped to the tunnel floor, Louis Nenda saw what no sighted organism in the universe had ever seen before: a Zardalu interior, as it must appear to a Cecropian’s ultrasonic imaging.

  The Starburst had triggered deep inside Holder. The light it provided was so intense that the body of the Zardalu became translucent, lit from within to reveal the interior organs. A diffuse blue glow shone from the maw, from the beak, from the eyes, even from the lower part of the canopy of tentacles. Nenda could see the dark ellipsoid of the brain, nestled in the center above the long cord of the central nerve conduit. Above that he could make out the shape of the eight-chambered heart, pumping its copper-based blood through the massive body. The Starburst itself was at the back of the maw, a dazzling point of blue.

  As Nenda watched, that point of light vanished. Holder became again a tall cylinder of midnight blue, supported on powerful tentacles.

  Except that those tentacles would no longer support the body. They splayed wider and wider, to spread across the whole width of the corridor. The torso slumped down at their center, lower and lower, until Holder stretched full-length along the floor, head toward her companions.

  Louis Nenda moved out of reach. Atvar H’sial had insisted that the Starburst was not really a weapon. It would not explode inside a Zardalu, and it would not kill one. But even without that, the strength of the internal illumination was enough to put the Zardalu out of action, at least in the short term.

  Nenda intended to handle the longer term himself. He had promised to take care of Holder personally, at the moment when the Zardalu had pulled Kallik’s leg off.

  He drew the long knife from its holder on his calf. Maybe he could not stab the Zardalu’s heart, because it sat too deep; but he could sure as hell carve a way down to it. And now he knew exactly where it lay in the body.

  Nenda started forward. And then he hesitated.

  Twelve Zardalu were still active. The burns that Hans Rebka, Darya Lang, and E. C. Tally had inflicted from behind were having the desired effect, spinning the Zardalu round and round, driving the pain-maddened aliens steadily forward toward the steep ramp that led down to the transportation vortex.

  But that created a new problem. Birdie Kelly lay immobile in his narrow niche by the tunnel wall. Either he knew that his only hope was in remaining still, or he had fainted. But Nenda, Kallik, Graves, J’merlia and Atvar H’sial were all in front of the Zardalu. And even though their adversaries were blinded, those tentacles and beaks had undiminished killing power. There was no way to drive them down the ramp, without the whole group being forced along with them.

  And the Zardalu were adapting to their blindness. Even as Nenda watched, E. C. Tally came within inches of being swept up by a thrashing, powerful arm.

  The embodied computer was in awful physical shape, and he should not have been in the battle at all. He was weaving and staggering, one leg dragging useless as he moved. He stepped close to one of the Zardalu, giving it a maximum intensity burn and forcing it to move, then tottering backwards. But a sweeping arm missed him by only a split-second.

  Nenda swore and put away his knife.

  Pleasure deferred, not pleasure denied. He’d get Holder later.

  It was not safe to speak, but he stood up, braving the forest of waving tentacles. He gestured to Hans Rebka. When the other finally noticed him, he pointed at Graves and the others in his group, and then to the tunnel behind them.

  Rebka nodded. He understood the problem. Nenda and the rest were penned in by the Zardalu. He patted the flashburn unit he was holding. Should they stop driving the Zardalu forward?

  But they might begin to recover their sight at any time. Rebka and the others had to keep harassing them, to drive them over the brink before they knew of the danger.

  Nenda shook his head. He made the gesture of firing a flashburn unit, and shrugged. Keep on burning them. We’ll have to find the solution here for ourselves.

  Rebka nodded again. He raised a clenched fist in encouragement, stepped closer to one of the turning Zardalu, and burned its eye.

  Sound thinking. Make sure they stay blind. But Nenda did not have time to watch.

  He made a split-second inventory of the rest of his group. Atvar H’sial could take care of herself, better than anyone. Kallik was missing a limb, but the wound was already sealed. To a Hymenopt it was no more than a minor inconvenience. She’d be all right. No time to worry about J’merlia, either, he’d follow Atvar H’sial’s lead. Birdie Kelly was as safe as anyone, provided that he did not move.

  Which left Julius Graves: blinded, battered, and bloody use
less.

  Nenda cursed. Typical of a councilor, to jump in and do something stupid when he did not know what was really going on. And to hand out orders into the bargain. Nenda had felt like kicking him for sticking his nose in, back in the other chamber when he was trying to lure the Zardalu to the transportation vortex and Graves had insisted on becoming involved.

  He resisted the urge to roll the feebly moving Graves down the steep tunnel and be rid of him. There was always the chance that Rebka or Darya Lang might see him do it.

  What was the answer?

  Nenda felt the touch of a tentacle on his back. He jumped clear and looked around. In the moment he had been wondering what to do, the Zardalu had been driven a foot closer by Rebka and the others. Four feet more, and escape from those killing arms would be impossible.

  He ran to J’merlia and Kallik’s side, pointing up to the tunnel ceiling and waving them on. Without waiting to see the results he moved to Atvar H’sial, placing himself right under the dark-red carapace.

  “Graves.” He pointed, though it was unnecessary with a pheromonal message. “The ceiling. Can you?”

  Atvar H’sial nodded. “I can. If he is unconscious.”

  Which he was not. Not yet. Nenda moved over to Julius Graves and delivered a rabbit punch to the back of the councilor’s neck, knocking him cold.

  Atvar H’sial picked up the body easily in two mid-limbs and began to climb up the wall to the corridor ceiling. Nenda saw that J’merlia and Kallik were already there. They were hanging upside down, waiting for a good moment to hurry over the heads of the maddened Zardalu.

  Which left only one problem. How was he going to get away? The Zardalu completely blocked the corridor, higher than his head. Crawling along ceilings was easy enough for bugs, impossible for him.

  He could see only one answer. It was one that did not appeal at all.

  Better do it now before you decide you can’t face it, he told himself.

  Nenda moved to the prostrate body of Holder. As the other Zardalu groped for him he forced his way headfirst into the thick tangle of Holder’s limbs. The space between the base of the tentacles was scarcely as wide as his body. There was a throat-clutching smell of musk and ammonia. Nenda shivered at the greasy touch of Zardalu flesh on his face. He could not do it this way; he would choke before he was halfway. He clumsily turned around to move in feet first.

  Push. A bit farther. Do it. Don’t think of where you’re going.

  He forced himself on until he was completely hidden.

  His legs were cramped against the bottom of Holder’s torso. The lower body sac felt soft and unprotected. Maybe that was the point of vulnerability for the Zardalu, something that had been known in the Great Rising and then forgotten.

  Nenda dismissed the thought. He could not use the information, while if Holder were to become conscious now…

  Don’t think of that, either. There was plenty else to worry about. The pain of his twisted limbs and bruised middle made him gasp when he moved — although ten seconds earlier he had been too busy to notice it.

  Think positive. Think we’re winning.

  Maybe they were. The sounds of the fight above and about him continued. He heard the sizzle of flashburn units on Zardalu flesh, whistles and clicks of pain, the pounding of enraged tentacles against walls and floor. Powerful tentacles slapped against Holder’s body.

  And then he heard a new sound. It was a human being in final agony.

  He risked pressing his face to the space between two tentacles and peered out.

  E. C. Tally’s failing body had been too slow. A Zardalu had him in four of its python arms. Hans Rebka and Darya were there, running in dangerously close to burn the eyes and the maw.

  To no effect. The Zardalu was filled with its own rage and blood lust. It was slowly pulling Tally apart. As Nenda watched both arms were plucked free, then the legs, one by one. They went into the body pouch — even in the middle of battle, food for ravenous Zardalu young would not be wasted. Finally the bloody stump of torso was hurled away, to smash against the corridor wall. The top of the skull flew loose, to be cracked like an eggshell a moment later by a threshing Zardalu tentacle.

  Nenda pulled his head back. There was nothing to be done for Tally. At least Atvar H’sial and the others must have made it across the ceiling to the relative safety of the higher corridor level, for there was no sign of them. He had to lie low a while longer, as Lang and Rebka tried to push the disoriented Zardalu the final few meters. He looked out along the line of Holder’s tentacles. Just three steps more, and they would be on the ramp to the vortex, right on the point of no return.

  The stab of agony in his right thumb was so unexpected that for a moment Nenda had no idea what was happening. The half-muffled cry squeezed out of him was shock more than pain.

  He lifted his hand. Clinging to it, its beak firmly set in the bleeding flesh, was a young Zardalu. As Nenda watched it swallowed a piece from the base of his thumb. In the same motion it snapped for another bite.

  He smacked the creature away with his other hand and stared around him. Now that he could see better in the shade of the sheltering tentacles, he could make out four small rounded shapes, pale apricot against the blue of the unconscious parent.

  The Starburst had been enough to knock out Holder, but the offspring were far from quiet. All the other infants were crawling single-mindedly toward him.

  “Not today, Junior. Try a bit of this.” Nenda grabbed them as they came and held them one after another to the underside of the adult Zardalu’s tentacles. After a moment’s hesitation they attacked the tough flesh with their sharp beaks. Holder’s body began to twitch.

  Nenda cursed his own stupidity. How dumb could you get? He ought to have let them keep on at him, rather than risk waking the unconscious adult.

  He groped for the black satchel at his side, opened it, and pulled out random bits of food. It was his reserve supply, but if Holder woke up now Louis Nenda would never need food again.

  The young Zardalu grabbed the fragments eagerly. Cannibalism was not apparently their first preference.

  Holder’s body rolled suddenly to the left. Nenda froze in horror. Then he realized that none of the tentacles was moving. Something was rolling the great body from outside, pushing it closer to the ramp. The sizzle of flashburn units was louder.

  He took another look along the line of Holder’s tentacles. The Zardalu were past him! He could see a confusion of stumbling bodies. While he had been preoccupied with the young ones, the adults had been herded forward. He watched them stagger one by one onto the beginning of the ramp, then overbalance and start away down the incline. Once they were on the steepest section the blind Zardalu were unable to stop. They could have no idea what was happening to them.

  Going, going… gone.

  The last Zardalu vanished, to cries of triumph from Rebka and the others. Nenda joined in, then realized that Holder’s body was still moving toward the tunnel that led to the vortex. A couple more meters and it, too, would be rolling on its way.

  “Hey!” He forced himself up from the sheltering tentacles, pushing with his legs and not worrying about arousing Holder. As his head poked free he found he was staring at the startled face of Darya Lang. She was leaning her weight against Holder’s body. Birdie Kelly was by her side.

  “Nenda!” she said. “You’re alive.”

  “You’ve got a talent for the obvious, Professor.”

  “You disappeared. We felt sure they’d got you — torn you to bits, or one of them took you in whole.”

  “Yeah. Ass first. I just took a rest in there.”

  “No time to chat, Nenda.” That was Hans Rebka, straining on the upper part of Holder’s torso. “It’s starting to come round — eyes opening. Get out here and help.”

  Nenda forced his way free to add his weight to the others. Everyone was there except Julius Graves and E. C. Tally. Nenda put his shoulder to the Zardalu body, standing between Atvar H’sial and Birdie
Kelly. Kelly nodded at him in an embarrassed way. Nenda nodded back and put his weight into the effort to move Holder.

  Four strong pushes from everyone, then Rebka was shouting: “Stand back! She’s going.”

  Nenda had one glimpse of a bleary eye, huge and heavy-lidded, opening less than a foot from his face. Then the last Zardalu was rolling and sliding and skidding its way faster and faster toward the dark whirlpool of the vortex. Holder vanished, the great body twisting around on itself as it entered the spinning singularity.

  “It is done.” That was a jubilant pheromonal comment from Atvar H’sial, straightening up. “Exactly as we planned it. And yet you appear less than content.”

  Nenda bent over, rubbing his sore hand at his sore legs, his sore back, sore midriff — sore everything. “We did all right. But I promised myself Holder’s guts — personally. Didn’t get the chance.”

  “I think perhaps you saw as much of Holder as a wise being would wish to.” The Cecropian version of humor came flooding in on Nenda. Atvar H’sial was feeling extra good. “Upon consideration, we were very lucky. My respect for the Zardalu as fighting machines is considerable. If we had met them under other circumstances, when they were not disoriented by their stay in the stasis tanks and confused as to their location… I confess, I am happy to see the last of them. The tearing power of those tentacles is close to unbelievable.”

  “Tearing power! They got Tally! Where is he?”

  Atvar H’sial gestured. What was left of the body of E. C. Tally was slumped against a wall, twenty meters away. Darya Lang and Hans Rebka were hurrying back along the corridor toward it. Birdie Kelly was already there.

  “He’s gone,” Kelly said.

  But Darya Lang went down on her knees, lifting Tally’s shattered skull gently in her hands and saying, “Tally. Tally, can you hear me?”

  The limbless torso shivered. The head nodded a millimeter, and one bruised eye slitted open to reveal a blue iris.

  “I hear.” The words were a whisper from purple lips. “May I speak?”