The Atomic Sea: Part Nine

by Jack Conner

  On the floor near the block, Risiglon smiled briefly at the sight of his god free and laying into his enemies, and then the professor went limp. He was gone.

  “The Codex!” Sheridan said, grabbing Avery’s arm and hurrying him forward. “Let’s grab it while Uthua distracts them.”

  The great, gelatinous form of Uthua, half as big as a whale or bigger, swelled monstrously toward the throne, glomming and glistening and awesome. It passed the Codex and the priests. The priests leapt to their feet and attacked the men that had been guarding them, probably meaning to steal their weapons and assist their god in his divine retribution, but the guards, who had been firing at Uthua, simply redirected their fire, and the priests fell back, dead or dying. Uthua moved on, uncaring, perhaps unheeding.

  Avery and Sheridan, sheltered by his nightmarish bulk, ran to the Codex, each grabbing one set of the handles that composed its litter, and hefted it up. It proved heavier than it looked, hovering as it did in air, and Avery strained under its weight.

  “Can you do it?” Sheridan said, air hissing between her teeth. Her face had gone red, and sweat soaked her hair. In the background, only dimly heard over the strange moans and roars of Uthua, trickled the sound of more gunfire ... and screaming.

  “I—can.” Avery blinked sweat out of his eyes.

  Together, they manhandled the Codex toward the nearest exit and through it. Avery looked once over his shoulder to see Uthua approach the throne, tentacles reaching for Onxcor, who was, with what might be the last of his strength, striking back at the god-thing with his sword, the blade flashing by the light of the brazier. Other men were rushing into the room, having heard gunfire in the vicinity of their leader, and were firing at Uthua, who had several of them gripped in his tentacles. Some he poisoned, melted, or burst into green fire, but most he devoured. Then Avery stumbled and turned back, helping Sheridan carry the heavy object through the tunnel.

  “Where are—we going?” he said.

  A group of men rushed by, all carrying weapons, but none spared a glance at them or the Codex.

  “To the—top,” Sheridan said. “But first—got to get to the—radio.”

  She meant her radio, he knew. They had to reach the locker room near the entrance and retrieve her things, or at least that one item. Only her radio could tune to the correct, slightly other-dimensional frequency to summon the zeppelin—and Segrul.

  “Let’s go,” Avery gasped, mentally wondering how he was going to prevent her from ordering the pirates to attack the city. Somehow he had to find a way.

  They lurched through the halls, gunfire sounding all around them. At any moment Avery expected to be overrun and shot to death, but the warriors had other things to worry about, at least for the moment. At some point someone would notice the Codex was gone and send men to find it, but for now Avery and Sheridan had time in which to act, if they acted swiftly.

  When they came to a certain cross-hall, she set her end of the Codex down and Avery followed suit.

  “No sense carrying this to the locker room,” she said. She had slung the strap of one of the warriors’ submachine guns over her shoulder, and she checked its rack and thumbed off the safety. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He dutifully stood guard over the Codex (not that he could have done much to defend it had anyone challenged his custody of the thing) while Sheridan slipped off down the tunnel to retrieve her radio from the locker room. He felt very alone, even marooned, and he jumped and started at every burst of gunfire. At one point he realized he was standing near a wall that was a showcase for Lord Onxcor’s displeasure. Half a dozen bodies, all in gruesome and disconnected poses, hovered in the red-glowing ice, each one seeming to move, just slightly, such were the properties of the substance. The red light lit their terrible visages—with lips and cheeks peeled away, creating gruesome smiles—like the light of some hell, as if they were damned souls, and Avery shivered and tried not to look. Still, he could feel them watching him, even reaching out for him, as a bomb crashed in the distance, and in the other direction someone let out a bellow.

  Come on, Jess, he thought. What would he do if she never returned? And there was no way he could transport the Codex by himself, it was just too heavy. And without the Codex ...

  He nearly fainted with relief when he saw her coming back down the hall, moving at a well-paced jog. The stalk of a radio antennae thrust up from one pocket.

  “Did you have to kill them?” he said.

  “The locker room guards had gone—to help the fighting, I suppose. Let’s go.”

  He didn’t know if he believed her or not. She could be lying to spare his feelings. Then again, he didn’t see any fresh blood on her—she already had a stripe of it across her front from the men she’d killed in the throne room—so she could be telling the truth. Then again, guns were distance weapons, not the sort that would necessitate the occasional splatter of blood.

  When she tilted up her side of the Codex, he lifted up his, and they were on their way once more. He was glad to leave the red-glowing wall of trophies behind.

  Shouts issued from behind them, and Avery looked back to see warriors of one group or another rounding the bend. The leader, who Avery recognized as the rebel envoy, pointed at Avery and Sheridan—or at least what they carried—and shouted something in Xlacan. Avery didn’t know what the man was saying, but he did know that the rebels had won the bid, and it seemed that they had not forgotten their prize.

  “Shit,” said Sheridan. “Run!”

  Avery shuffle-ran as Sheridan led the way down a side hall, narrower and colder. Shots fired behind them, but the bullets merely glanced off the corner, spraying chips of crackling ice. Sheridan and Avery hauled their ungainly burden faster as footsteps neared the turn, and when they reached it Sheridan dropped her end of the Codex, grabbed her submachine gun and let off a burst down the hall. There came howling, and the sound of the men drew back, but Avery knew that would only last for a moment.

  Sheridan fired another series of rounds at the ceiling near the tunnel entrance. The clustered stalactites there broke off, as did some of the ice, and crashed down to block the entrance. Energy sparked.

  “That should hold them for a minute,” she said, and they started off once more. “What the hell were the rebels doing here?” she huffed, and there was genuine venom in her voice.

  Avery swallowed. “I—don’t know.”

  She glared at him openly across the top of the Codex. “Don’t you, Doctor?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I saw the looks—Onxcor was giving you.” Her face was growing red, whether in exertion or anger he didn’t know. “What did you do, Doctor?”

  Staring into her eyes, he almost tripped and sent the Codex spilling. Concentrate on your feet. Stubbornly, he refused to answer, and her face only grew redder. I’m going to pay for this later, he thought, if I survive. If things worked out, though, it was a price he was willing to pay.

  With a visible effort, Sheridan suppressed her fury. In a tightly controlled voice, she said, “We need to—find a staircase.”

  “Dear gods, don’t tell me—we really have to carry—this up.”

  “Already called the—Valanca. They’re picking us up—top of the dome.”

  He almost smiled. “Just like—last time we—retrieved an Ygrithan relic.”

  “Last time we—parted ways. That could happen—again.”

  He shivered. Would she really leave him here?

  They reached a cross-hall, then trundled down it to a more major hall, where they paused. Warriors crouched behind blocks of ice placed there just for that purpose and fired down the hall at black figures in body armor, advancing behind a wall of shields—Octunggen storm troopers. Gods. The head priest had been serious. Already the bodies of several warriors littered the ground. Instead of continuing to fall back, more warriors were rushing to their aid. Avery saw that the original group had been composed of men he recognized as belonging to Lord Onxcor, but
the new group was led by Gaxilg, the envoy that had represented the rival clan’s chief. Not only were the rebels here, but so were members of the other clan. And they were helping Onxcor’s people. Presumably the rebels were, too. Avery tried not to show his glee. It’s working!

  Sheridan saw his expression, and her own face twisted. She clearly wanted to snap at him, possibly worse, but the mission was more important.

  “I need to summon Segrul,” she said. “I’d hoped to avoid it, but if—for some reason—the tribes are working with each other now ...”

  She brought out her radio, depressed a button—

  He snatched it out of her hand and flung it in the direction of the fighting. He moved with a speed that surprised even him, and by the time her reflexes kicked in it was too late.

  She punched him in the jaw. He reeled back, catching himself before he spilled out into the line of fire.

  “What did you do?” she said.

  He rubbed his jaw. “What did you think—that I’d become Octunggen?—that I’d help you conquer some innocent country?”

  “These tribals are hardly—” She visibly struggled with her emotions. If nothing else, she needed him to help haul the Codex. She glared at him hotly, and for a moment he felt a swell of guilt. She trusted me, and I betrayed her.

  “Follow my lead,” she said, almost spitting out the words.

  Keeping her head low, she backpedalled into the hall carrying her side of the Codex, and he followed as she found a block of ice to hide behind. A bullet whined off the block, showering white shards into Avery’s hair, and he barely felt the cold.

  Warriors running down the hall glanced at the two curiously as they rushed to reinforce their comrades, but as Sheridan and Avery weren’t firing at them and didn’t seem to pose a threat the warriors rushed on.

  Grimacing under the weight, Avery and Sheridan resumed their journey, leaving the battle behind. They found a staircase and laboriously began hauling the Codex up it. How many flights are there in this thing? Avery didn’t know how many he was capable of carrying the Codex up—how many his knees were capable of bearing it up. Already he could feel them creaking. Why couldn’t Sheridan have arranged a more convenient pick-up spot? Then again, the dome was a high point in Xlatleb, and he could hardly expect the airship to set down in the middle of a city street.

  The two pressed up one floor, then another, even as the whole building shuddered around them, ice occasionally cracking under their feet. Once an icy stalactite snapped off from above and plummeted to smash into the stairs beside Avery, peppering him with shards and almost causing him to drop the Codex.

  “Get going!” Sheridan barked, and he obeyed. He had the heavy end going up, but at least he could face the front. Sheridan had to make do with backpedaling the whole way. She seemed up to it, however.

  At last the stairs ended.

  “Damn it,” she said. “We’re only halfway up.”

  “Down the hall,” Avery panted. “I think I—remember. The stairwell—we took—going to Onxcor’s suite.”

  They lugged the Codex from the stairwell, huddling against the wall as more warriors ran past. Avery couldn’t even begin to guess which faction they represented. He was sure the dress and hairstyles of each clan must differ appreciably, at least to them, but he couldn’t tell one from another. Perhaps Risiglon could have. For a moment Avery felt a pang of pity for the dead anthropologist, who after all had been another learned man caught up in the mechanisms of global war. At least the warriors paid no attention to Avery and Sheridan, though one did give the Codex an appraising look, possibly trying to determine how much it might be worth.

  When the warriors had gone, Avery and Sheridan resumed their trek, but they hadn’t gone twenty feet when suddenly the air stank like ammonia, then began to blur around them.

  “Fuck!” said Sheridan.

  Pain flared through Avery. Something struck him, and he spun through the air.

  He must have blacked out for a moment, and when he came to Sheridan was slumped against the wall further down the hall, a trickle of blood at the corner of her lips. Invisible shapes, or one great shape, massed around the Codex, the air blurring where it, or them, occupied the space. The air didn’t ripple quite like it did around Uthua or Layanna; this was no phantasmal, otherworldly breaking of realities. Rather it seemed as if there was something solid there but for some reason it wasn’t reflecting light.

  It was hefting the Codex up. It, at least, remained visible.

  Blinking her eyes, Sheridan swatted feebly at the shape or shapes, but she was stunned and her hand fell away. Avery felt in no condition to rise, let alone move against the newcomers, and he clutched along his limbs and chest, feeling for broken bones but not finding any.

  The Codex rose off the ground, began to drift away—

  Uthua exploded from around the bend, huge and amorphous, having to compress his gargantuan bulk to squeeze into the tight hall. He slashed at the invisible shapes with his tentacles in a frenzy of rage, or perhaps desperation. He struck something, and the Codex dropped to the ground. Incredibly, something seemed to strike him back; Avery saw the flash as some invisible limb or weapon sliced into his sac wall, penetrating it cleanly in a manner that hinted at extradimensional abilities. Uthua roared and lashed the shape or shapes even more violently. The enemy lashed back, and for a moment Avery feared they would get the better of Uthua; apparently they had before.

  This time, though, he had the element of surprise, and in the tight spaces they—Avery thought the attackers were multiple—could not surround him, and his limbs were likely larger and longer than theirs. The blurring in the air that signaled the presence of the attackers retreated, then vanished down a side hall, leaving a swollen and monstrous Uthua behind, with his other-self still pulled about him.

  He had rescued Avery and Sheridan.

  Ignoring them, however, he examined the Codex, then lifted it up.

  “The zeppelin,” Sheridan rasped.

  Uthua paused.

  She sat up, then climbed to her feet. “It’s going to pick us up. Can you carry the Codex? I’ll lead you to the pick-up spot.”

  Avery admired how deftly she had managed to make herself useful to the Collossum—how she had managed not to get left behind.

  The air shimmered around Uthua, and Avery knew he must be communicating psychically with Sheridan. She staggered, a hand going to her head, then nodded. Still weaving slightly, she moved to Avery and helped him to his feet. He didn’t want to go anywhere at first, but she gave him a stern look and said, her voice surprisingly gentle, “If we don’t go now, we might never.”

  He forced himself to his feet. The world tilted and spun around him, but he grew steadier.

  “This way,” Sheridan said, and led the way toward the stairs. Avery followed and Uthua, awful and massive, brought up the year. If nothing else, Avery was grateful that the creature carried the Codex, as it was damned heavy, and he wondered how long Uthua could maintain his other-form. Longer than Layanna, surely—he was almost an Elder, after all—but certainly not infinitely. The answer, Avery felt, would rest on how many people Uthua had just feasted on. Avery wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  His knees protested as he climbed, and he was still so dizzy from the blow and the poison—he thought it was poison, and could feel a burning on his neck where the venomous limb must have struck him, but he didn’t feel himself getting any weaker; it wasn’t spreading through his system—that he knew there was no way he could have continued on with the Codex. He felt as if he were carrying five of them right now. At every pop of a gun in the distance, or the creak of the ice overhead as some bomb went off below, he feared the invisible attackers would return, and, indeed, he felt they must be stalking the party, waiting for a moment to strike.

  Panting, Sheridan brought them out of the stairwell and to the door of Lord Onxcor’s penthouse. Kicking it open, she leapt in, gun sweeping the area, but there was no sign of Lord Onxcor’s retainers
and concubines. Presumably the former were fighting and the latter were hiding. Avery and the others made their way through the luxurious rooms, reached the terrace and stepped outside. The wind shrieked around the upper ramparts of the dome, and Avery gasped at the shock of the cold and drew his jacket tight about him. As it was daytime, the city was blindingly white below, so much so that he had to mash his eyes shut against it. He wished it were nighttime so that he could see the gorgeous panorama of the glowing domes one last time.

  Sheridan ripped the top off a trashcan, stuffed it with debris and lit a fire in it, then waved it overhead, using it as a makeshift beacon. Soon enough, the form of a zeppelin lowered toward them out of the soot-gray clouds, and Avery felt his heartbeat increase.

  Uthua, obviously taxed to maintain his other-self, shrank his amoebic sac to more manageable levels but didn’t release the Codex.

  The dome shook beneath Avery’s feet as a bomb went off, and further down the dome he could see a white section of wall crumble, raining icy chunks into the streets below. Gunfire rattled up from the hole.

  Gods, he thought, what have we started?

  The terrace door smashed open. Invisible shapes swarmed out, the air flexing around them. They rushed at Uthua, half encircling him, and immediately began flailing him with their poisonous, whip-like appendages, or what Avery guessed to be appendages: the same poisonous tentacles that had struck him in the hallway, the same ones that had ripped those men and women apart downstairs. All bearing a poison that was more harmful against Uthua than to Avery.

  Uthua’s sac wall flared and smoldered where the attackers struck him. He bellowed, a strangely whale-like sound, and responded with fury. He grabbed up one blur-shape in a tentacle and it burst into green fire. An awful scream rose up. The surviving shapes lashed him all the harder.

  Sheridan lowered her assault rifle and fired a burst, but she only got out a few shots before one of the shapes tore the gun from her hands and struck her heavily, sending her toward the terrace railing. Avery sprang, intercepting her with his body. They crashed against the rail, him taking the brunt of the blow. He screamed out when his lower back hit, and he knew if he lived he would have a terrible bruise there for days. As it was, he and Sheridan slumped to the ground, gasping, as Uthua raged before them, lashing the area with his tentacles and slamming the deck with his pseudopods. The walls and floor cracked, and Avery feared that at any moment the terrace would snap off and they would all plummet to their deaths.