Leviathans in the Clouds

by David Parish-Whittaker

  Perhaps she’d been right when she’d told Nathanial that the opeme was nothing more than a flying horse. After all, the horses of her youth had out massed her considerably. If a safe were to fall upon one’s head, it would make little difference to the victim whether it weighed in at a half ton or two tons. The key was more in the temperament of the beast. She’d certainly prefer to give a horse a cuddle than a badger, after all.

  “Weren’t those my biscuits?” Nathanial asked from behind her.

  “You’ll have to take it up with him,” Annabelle said. The opeme was using one of its wing claws to clear out a remnant of the package stuck between its rear teeth. “Possession is nine points of the law, you do realize.”

  “‘Property is theft’ is more the aphorism that comes to mind,” Nathanial said. “I’d be careful. Simpler creatures don’t always make the distinction between what gives them the food and the food itself.”

  “I don’t think it simple,” Annabelle said, going back to stroking the opeme’s neck. Its skin was as warm as any mammal’s. “This is no dumb and lethargic lizard, I think. For one, its tack is quite rudimentary, meaning that they control it more through signals than brute force. Not that controlling through force is really an option with something this size. In any event, anything that trainable is clearly intelligent.”

  “You do have a way with the native fauna. But speaking of the Venusian ecosystem, we truly need to leave. Sooner or later those flame throwers of theirs will run dry and the prawns will doubtless return.”

  “I’m ready.” She leaned over to whisper. “Have you seen Thymon?”

  “I’m afraid not. But I’m certain he’s had time to escape. Yet another local creature who finds your charms irresistible, eh?”

  Annabelle glared. “He’s not just some creature, he’s a person. Perhaps my ‘charms’, as you call them, are simply my ability to see him as such.”

  Nathanial looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, but you have to admit it can be hard to see a seven foot tall monster in the same light as one’s favourite spinster auntie.”

  “And what of K’chuk? Did you not consider him a person?”

  “Absolutely not. He was an ant. An intelligent ant, but an ant nonetheless.”

  Annabelle shook her head. “He gave his life for us, Nathanial.”

  “I have not forgotten, and will always be grateful to him. But I still cannot think of him as a person. If you can see this opeme here as a horse, you’re better than I am.”

  “Perhaps in a way,” Annabelle said. “But a horse can’t fly, unlike this beastie here. That’s bound to give it a different outlook on life.”

  “That and it’s the size of a giraffe. Carnivorous, too, judging by those teeth.”

  “Omnivorous. He likes biscuits, remember? Speaking of which, have you any more?”

  Nathanial rolled his eyes and produced a packet. “Try to ration them.”

  Annabelle tossed one into the opeme’s waiting mouth. “There. I want him to remember that we hand out treats periodically. Inspires the little fellow to keep us around, rather than trying to buck us off in midair or some nonsense like that.”

  “Or eat us outright. Don’t forget that possibility.”

  “Don’t roll about in butter and sugar, and I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  “I shall take that under advisement.”

  Chapter Twelve

  1.

  Apparently satisfied that Annabelle was secure, her opeme’s rider sat down next to her like a coachman sharing his seat. It was a tight squeeze, and Annabelle found herself pressing up against him in a manner that would give cause for comment were he an eligible young man. She could feel the warmth of his body, even smell a slight spiciness. Despite the gaff and fire thrower, the rider seemed less imposing than she’d at first thought. She would even go so far as to call him delicate.

  Picking up the reins, she could see that his hands were exactly like the mummified example they’d found back in the safehouse. Was that hand from an opeme rider who had fallen victim to the prawns? It seemed likely. Doubtless, this fellow was more than ready to leave.

  As if in answer to that, the rider picked up the reins and gave them a light flick. The opeme rose up on its wings, assuming the four-legged stance that she’d seen the creatures walking in after they landed. She looked down. They were a good ten feet up off the ground now, with the neck of the opeme curving swanlike another eight feet above them.

  The rider took his gaff and prodded the opeme at the base of the neck. It raised its head and screeched along with the others. Annabelle glanced over at Nathanial and Arnaud on their mounts. So far, everyone seemed secure, physically if not emotionally.

  Annabelle had assumed that the opeme would need a long take off run, much like the albatross back on Earth did. It wasn’t some hummingbird that could just leap up into the air, after all.

  She was wrong.

  In one smooth motion, their steed crouched low with its wings spread, head back and body bent, air whistling through its nose as it took a massive breath that made its chest swell. Annabelle was slammed against the cantle as the opeme flung itself forward and up, snapping its wings out. The wind was tremendous. They were now going so fast as to make her eyes water as she squinted ahead.

  They were falling into formation at treetop level with a handful of stragglers flapping to catch up behind them. Annabelle’s mount had still yet to flap. She watched the opeme’s wings curl at the trailing edge as it slowed. As the last of the opeme fell into position, she could see Nathan’s opeme in the lead straighten its neck, no longer looking like a pelican in flight but instead a winged arrow. As ungainly as the creatures were on the ground, they were sleek in flight with the speed to match.

  The wind picked up, then her rider gave its opeme the reins while slapping either side of the neck with the gaff. Its shoulders surged beneath them as the wings snapped downward. It felt like nothing so much as a horse leaping into a canter, if each stride of a canter took one a hundred yards forward while fanning the rider with carriage-sized wings. The wind around them swirled like a hurricane. Annabelle wasn’t sure if she was thrilled or terrified.

  A bit of both, she decided.

  After a minute of bouncing around uncomfortably as the opeme beat his wings, Annabelle discovered the rhythm and settled into a more secure seat, moving her hips with the motion of the beast. This was true flying, she decided. Even Forbes-Hamilton would be forced to agree, although he’d no doubt sniffily call riding an animal a primitive form of locomotion. For all her time at the helms of aether flyers, though, Annabelle preferred something alive. It was one less barrier to true flight. There were no artificial controls here, just two living creatures soaring through the skies together. It was that feeling of being one with the mount, rather than struggling with it or worse yet, being carried like a sack of potatoes on a cart.

  Well, she was being carried, in fact. She might have found her seat, but the rider was the one directing the action. It didn’t eliminate the thrill of flying, but it did remind her that she wasn’t in control. It wasn’t a feeling she relished.

  If she couldn’t steer the beast herself, the least she could do was watch the rider in action. And he was clearly skilled. The opeme might not be a horse, but she could still sense when someone knew what he was doing. The gaff wasn’t being used as punishment so much as a gentle signal. After a few turns, Annabelle moved in the seat along with the rider to help with the weight shifts, earning her a look that was either impressed or annoyed. She wasn’t sure: she’d learned Thymon’s expressions, but the riders were clearly of another species, as distant from the Skreelan as humans were from Martians.

  They flew just below the bases of scudding clouds, paralleling the course of a broad, mostly straight river. Venus being Venus, it was impossible to remain completely in the clear, of course. Over the next hour, they passed through various rain squalls and fog banks. When they did, the riders turned on their flamethrowers, which provid
ed both light to see each other by and also seemed to thin the clouds and rain in the immediate vicinity. Thinned rain squalls or not, Annabelle soon found herself drenched to the skin, her discomfort magnified by her wet hair and clothes snapping about in the airstream. She could see why the natives hardly wore any clothing at all. Not that she was prepared to affect the local style. She didn’t fancy she’d look anything other than embarrassed and uncomfortable.

  Breaking out of one particularly thick cloud bank, she could see what appeared to be a large city up ahead. It was situated on an island in the middle of a lake, crisscrossed with a labyrinthine network of canals. The buildings themselves were shaped like oversized rounded beehives carved out of stone. They were nothing at all like the huts of the Skreelan, so individual in their haphazard arrangement. Instead, they were regularly spaced like pieces on a circular chess board. It gave the impression that some god or another had just set them up, ready to begin a game.

  The structure in the middle commanded the attention of the observer. It was a hundred meter high truncated pyramid, with a number of pillars spaced around the top. The clouds parted enough for sunlight to stream down, making the pillars sparkle with a metallic sheen. Annabelle wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she felt an electrical tingling as she stared at the pyramid.

  The opeme riders swooped down to the water, so close to the surface that their wingtips sprayed water when they flapped. There were other members of the riders’ species out here, most manning large dugout canoes, but a few on opeme of their own, skimming the surface just as they were. Some were in pairs, dragging something between them through the water. One of these teams landed on a dugout, and Annabelle could see that they’d been dragging a large net, now filled with fish or the Venusian equivalent. They dumped the catch on the dugout’s main deck, then flew off to resume their work.

  They were fairly self-sufficient, it seemed. It would explain why no one had discovered the city before. If there was no reason for the city dwellers to explore elsewhere, they wouldn’t have come across human settlements. And judging by Thymon’s reaction, the local Skreelan would have been unlikely to bother making a fleet of their bark canoes in order to bother the city. The lake was wide enough that even without the persistent rain, the shore would have been just over the horizon. Annabelle imagined that after years of no contact, all that remained would be tales of mutual distrust.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have sent Thymon off, after all. It had seemed the right thing to do, but she was already missing him with his perspective that only a local could have. No matter, she was sure he was fine. He’d made it out to the German colonies easily enough, he’d make it back. If she kept telling herself that, perhaps she’d believe it after a while.

  Reaching the shore, they flew over a marshy grove choked with short, thin trees that could have been mistaken for oversized reeds were it not for their leafy tops. The trees surrounded the city perimeter, which was a large dam of some stony material. Passing over the dam, they spiraled down towards a field of compressed peat.

  A few dozen riders were there, with a small flock of opeme circled next to a watering pond. They wandered over as the arriving opeme touched down.

  Landing was thankfully uneventful. Annabelle allowed Nathanial and Arnaud to assist her down from the saddle.

  “Do you think we’re captives?” Annabelle asked a somewhat wan looking Nathanial.

  “Well, perhaps,” he said. “I mean, we didn’t get awfully much choice in coming out here, did we? That said, this place is fascinating!”

  “Indeed,” said Arnaud. “I am not sure from where we stand, but that substance the dike is made of, it does not appear to be simple dirt or peat. It looks as if it is stone.”

  “On Venus? The natives don’t even have flint weapons,” Nathanial said.

  “No, they have flamethrowers,” Arnaud said. “Ones that look very much as if they might have been made from those reed trees we passed by, no? So, this raises the question of how they make this dam out of stone. No tools to carve with, no need for developing them when they can fish and make fire with ease. All development needs impetus, and I see none here.”

  The two quickly fell into intense discussion, the rest of the world apparently forgotten. Including me, Annabelle thought with some amusement. It was as she had said; Nathanial needed someone with whom to discuss such things, and the captain and she were poor substitutes for another scientific mind. Heading back to her opeme, she gave it a pat on the flank. Still damp from the flight, its veins bulged prominently in its neck. She could see that it was still breathing rapidly.

  “Aren’t you going cool the poor thing down?” she asked her rider. The rider turned to her, blinking with a complete lack of comprehension. She turned to the leader whom Nathan had been flying with.

  “The opeme,” she said, pointing at her mount. “Tired, yes?”

  The leader whistled. “Opeme? Yes, tired. All things work. All things get used. If die, get other.”

  Annabelle knew humans with that attitude towards horses. She didn’t care for it, and monstrous dragon beast or not, she was growing fond of her mount. Call it cupboard love on its part, and an infatuation with flying on hers, but she just couldn’t countenance the thing getting colic. Or whatever dinosaurs got.

  “So, you don’t care at all, do you?” she said.

  “No, they don’t, my dear,” called an Englishman’s voice from behind her. “Can’t expect a skink to care about anything, really. They ain’t us.”

  Annabelle turned to see a middle aged man with muttonchops, a pith helmet and precious little else aside from a leather kilt and a wide metal necklace, which gave him the appearance of a dissolute pharaoh. Stripped to the waist, his sagging features were covered with swirls of inexpertly applied paint in a myriad of colors. As he approached, the riders ran over and formed a line as if getting ready for pass and review. The man walked by the formation of riders without so much as glancing at them.

  He wiped a hand on his kilt then extended it to Annabelle.

  “Ned Collins at your service,” he said, eyeing her from toe to top. “But you figured that, I’m sure.”

  Annabelle glanced at the proffered hand. Collins exuded the odour of a man for whom the rains had long ago replaced bathing. Mixed with that was a strange, almost feral muskiness, as if he had just come back from a sleepover hosted by several unaltered tomcats.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mister Collins,” she said with a slight bow. She tried not to inhale.

  “Are you, then?” he said with a sidewise grin as he dropped his hand.

  “Oh, quite,” she said with forced sincerity. There was something about the fellow which irritated her. She’d met her share of eccentric prospectors and explorers over the years, so it wasn’t the man’s lack of hygiene. It was probably the way he was clearly undressing her with his eyes. She idly thought about waving her engagement ring in his face.

  Finally meeting her eyes, Collins grunted thoughtfully. “You got friends with you?”

  “Two, in fact,” said Annabelle.

  “Bloody hell. Damnable skinks were supposed to keep them here. Hey, Freddie!” Collins yelled at the lead rider, who literally jumped a foot into the air. “Find humans. Quick, quick, got it?” The rider ran off towards the dike. He shook his head. “Just can’t get good help anymore.”

  “Sorry, had no idea those two had wandered off,” Annabelle said. She peered into the distance where the rider went. “They seemed fascinated by the material of the dam.”

  Collins grunted again. “Good. They’ve got some sense if they spotted that right off. Glad to hear it, sounds as if I can use them.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have you show them about, but we’re on a bit of a mission.”

  “Ha!” Collins waggled a finger. “After the ore, ain’t you? Don’t think I don’t know it. Germans were, too.” He massaged his chin. “You’re American, right? Just guessing.”

  “You guess c
orrectly,” said Annabelle, trying to put some frost in her voice. Where had Nathanial and Arnaud run off to? There was only so much more of this she could take. “I suppose I should have invested in those elocution lessons.”

  “Nah, nothing stirs the loins like the thought of woman who can bring down a buffalo by herself.”

  Funny you should say that, she thought, but instead she said “Excuse me?” Annabelle was seriously contemplating shooting the man in the foot. If it weren’t for the fact that he seemed to have some control over the natives, she might very well have done so. She was done with giving uncouth men the benefit of a doubt.

  “Buffalo. Big hairy beastie, wanders around on the—oh, here they are.” Surrounded by natives, Nathanial and Arnaud approached.

  “My brother, sir,” Annabelle said. “Professor William Brooker.”

  “You’ve got yourself an escort, then? Fair enough,” Collins said with a shrug. “Hey lads, over here!” He stepped forward and snatched Nathanial’s hand, shaking hands rapidly without giving him a chance to decline.

  “Mister Collins, I presume,” Nathanial said, his face reflecting a certain amount of discomfit.

  “The same. Ah, good, at least one Englishman, then. Unless you’ve taken speech lessons.”

  “Not recently, no,” said Nathanial, adjusting a cufflink with great care.

  “Alas, I am from France, monsieur,” said Arnaud. “I am hoping that you will not consider it a character defect.”

  Collins barked a short laugh. “Not your fault. I suppose we can blame your mother. Glad to see you gents are regular, unlike gimpy over there. But let’s walk and talk, shall we?”

  “Gimpy?” whispered Nathanial as he took Annabelle’s arm. To refer to her look as “displeased” would have been akin to calling a shark swimming through blood-infused water “peckish.”

  “I was considering shooting him,” said Annabelle. “In the foot, of course.”

  “Of course. But you’ve given up the notion?”