The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  Gilmour looked up long enough to say, ‘Rutting whores, Doren, be careful! Crush it quickly, before it recovers or gets away.’

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll step on the bug – but I don’t think this thing could have knocked Steven so—’

  Finding its legs, the tan-bak’s hunter sprang from the dusty floor to grip a seam in Captain Ford’s tunic, just beneath his neck.

  ‘Motherless dryhumping—!’ He danced like a man on fire, swatting and slapping at himself, tearing at his cloak, whining something incoherent. The spider-beetle lost its grip and, scurrying like spilled quicksilver, it dashed for the pile of firewood, but this time, Captain Ford was too quick and pounced on the nefarious intruder, stamping on it again and again until the bug looked like a bit of spilled tar.

  ‘Good,’ Gilmour said quietly. ‘You got it.’

  Sweating and shaking now, he knelt for a moment, his head in his hands, then tried to stand up. His hands were trembling as adrenalin rushed through his system; he couldn’t stay still. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  Gilmour ignored him and concentrated on his fallen comrade. ‘Come on Steven,’ he begged, rubbing his hands, which glowed a soft red in the harsh glare of the false Larion suns. ‘Come on, my boy.’

  ‘Did it bite him?’

  ‘At least twice.’ Gilmour didn’t look up.

  ‘Is he—?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What can I—?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’ Gilmour examined Steven’s injured hand. With two fingers, he pinched the bite puncture, then massaged along Steven’s forearm with his free hand until a thin stream of blood flowed from the wound and pooled on the dusty wooden floor.

  The bloodletting went on for while, long enough for Ford to calm down a little. ‘How much do you have to flush out?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Gilmour remained focused on what he was doing.

  ‘Can you do that to his neck?’

  ‘I’ll try, but I’m afraid it may be too late for that. I can drain the venom this way, but a bite in the neck—’ Gilmour grimaced, ‘that’s already circulated too deep.’

  He let Steven’s arm rest beside the puddle and turned his attention to the swollen, purplish marks in the young man’s throat.

  A wave, different from the swells that had been rolling beneath the brig-sloop all day, tossed the Morning Star off her heading. Her bow came down with a splash, noisy in the hold despite the background racket. Ford frowned and muttered, ‘Marrin.’

  BRANAG’S WOLFHOUND

  It was dark almost everywhere, except for a few points of light that were almost blinding. Steven squinted, putting a hand over his brow to see across the parking lot – an absurd gesture after dark, he had to admit. It’s headlights, high beams, he thought finally. Those are cars on the highway. A moment later, a van, a motorcycle and a family SUV passed by on their way into Golden. To the east, Denver glowed like a massive prairie fire, but he was too far into the hills to hear anything more than the occasional truck passing along Interstate 70. Downshifting on the last precarious slope before running out over nearly a thousand miles of flat nothingness, the trucks sometimes sounded like their engines would explode from the effort of slowing through the final downhill turns outside the suburbs. He could smell their brakes, even from here.

  He was at the diner in Golden; they had the best pie in the Western hemisphere. It didn’t matter what kind; they were all the best. But the lights were out; the place was closed. Even the neon, which usually burned all night, had gone dark. Steven wondered if perhaps the city had run out of electricity.

  It smelled good, too: clear mountain air with just a hint of pollution. Eldarn always smelled so clean, so free from pollutants and exhaust. He loved the smell of home; it was the scent of fallibility and progress all wrapped together in one heady aroma.

  Hannah was here. She had met him to say good night. wish I could see you, just for a minute, just to say good night properly. Steven had driven down the canyon, anticipation tightening in his chest. He saw her now, leaning against the hood of her car, sipping from a Styrofoam cup. She must have arrived before the diner closed, before the city went black.

  It had been too long since he had seen her, too long since they had spoken together. What would he say? What would she think of him, exhausted, thin and careworn, and full of some unexplained mystical legacy? Would it be the same, two twentysomethings dating, thinking about love, careers, marriage, and hoping for the future? He held his breath and crossed the parking lot.

  ‘Hello, Steven,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been … I’ve— Hannah, I’ve been looking …’ he stammered.

  ‘I know. I’ve been looking for you too.’

  ‘How did you get here?’ he asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she smiled. Even in the dark he could see those tiny lines pulling at the corners of her eyes. Good Christ, but she’s beautiful. He fought off a wave of dizziness and reached for her.

  Hannah boosted herself up on the hood of the car and took him into her arms.

  Steven ran his hands across her back and down to the waist of her jeans. She wore the same blue sweatshirt she had worn the last time he had seen her here, but she too was thinner. He could feel her ribs pressing out through the soft cotton weave. ‘What happened to you?’ he said.

  ‘Never mind.’ She slipped a hand through his hair and pulled his face into the nape of her neck.

  Steven inhaled. Lilacs. This has to be the only place left in the world where I can smell lilacs. The dizziness returned, this time getting the better of him, and his knees threatened to give way. He let her go, pressed his palms on the hood – it was still warm – and held himself up.

  Hannah kissed him, soft at first, then harder, ardent, fierce, and he locked his knees, propping himself up so he could hold her, feel her move around him. She was squeezing his hips between her thighs, rubbing herself against him; he could feel heat rising from the engine. It was warmer than the night air in the foothills.

  Pushing him back a little, not far, Hannah slipped the blue sweatshirt over her head and unfastened her bra. Steven tugged at it, all at once wanting it gone, out of the way; it caught on one shoulder, just for a second, then slipped free.

  ‘Help me with my jeans,’ she whispered.

  He fumbled for the button while Hannah reclined, arching her back over the warm steel bed, luxuriating in the heat.

  Her jeans were hard to unfasten. Steven struggled to stay focused; his own jeans were ready to burst. Pressing his bulging erection against the car, he tugged until Hannah’s buttons came open and she lifted her hips far enough for him to slide the jeans down to mid-thigh, not far enough, but Steven couldn’t wait. Yellow and red flares were bursting in the space behind his eyes, blinding him, and he blinked, let go for an agonising moment to rub his head.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Hannah whispered, her silky hair splayed across the hood of her car. ‘Get up here with me.’

  Steven swallowed. His throat was dry. Pressing himself harder against the car, he finally worked his own jeans open, slid the zipper down and tugged to get free. Struck by the hilarity of losing a wrestling match to a pair of pants in a public parking lot, Steven started to laugh. Hannah joined him, reaching a hand down and spreading her fingers across her lower abdomen.

  Like an artist’s rendition of the Rule of Three, Hannah’s jeans were pulled open and askew across her lower thighs, her panties, cream-coloured and rolled over, a tangle of netting, and milky skin, dark hair and that glorious musty aroma that mingled with the smell of oil and exhaust, the smells of fallibility and home.

  ‘I’m gonna come,’ he said thickly. ‘I’m not even gonna make it up there.’

  ‘Yes, you will.’ She touched herself, briefly, before sliding her panties and jeans over her knees. They fell to the ground at Steven’s feet.

  A dog padded around the front of Hannah’s car, stopped to look at them and then continued on. It was a big dog, li
ke a wolf, and Steven yelped when he saw it. ‘Jesus whoring Christ,’ he cried, ‘did you see that?’ He let go of her thighs and watched the dog wander towards the far end of the parking lot, as if giving them a minute alone.

  ‘What?’ Hannah tried unsuccessfully to cover herself with her hands. She sat up, propped up on one elbow and strained to see. ‘Is someone there?’

  ‘No,’ Steven said, calming, ‘no, it was just a dog, someone’s lost dog, some big mutt out wandering around. It’s gone now.’

  ‘Well, good.’ Hannah ran her fingernails across his hips and down beneath his boxers. ‘Let’s get you out of these.’

  He kissed her. ‘Yes, let’s do that.’

  Steven moved his hips, letting his own jeans fall into a heap beside Hannah’s, then pulled down on his boxers. He was ready to burst; he just hoped he wouldn’t explode all over the side of her car. That’d be all he needed: to embarrass himself and have to find an all-night carwash in Golden.

  The first of the spider-beetles crawled from the waistband of his boxers and, scurrying up his stomach, they fanned out on either side of his navel, like scouts for an invasion force.

  ‘What the hell?’ he shouted, and that was the cue for the others to come, all at once. Hundreds of beetles crawled, leaped or skittered down his thighs, up and around his erection, beneath his scrotum and between his legs. They were all over his stomach now, inside his navel and crawling under his sweater, digging for his chest and neck.

  ‘What is this? Jesus, help me! Hannah, what is this?’

  Sitting naked, one hand splayed across her lower stomach, Hannah said, ‘You have to wake up, Steven. Wake up!’

  ‘What?’ He couldn’t hear her. Terror paralysed him as he felt the swarm – not stinging yet, still deploying – crawling over his body.

  ‘Wake up!’ Hannah insisted.

  He screamed, losing himself to panic, swatting at hundreds of mutant spider-beetles, nightmare insects with hairy, spindly legs and coloured constellations dotting their tiny thoraxes. Steven’s mind ran away from him, left him stranded, half-naked with a hard-on in a parking lot, screaming as a regiment of tiny demon sentries explored every inch of his pallid flesh.

  His hand was bleeding, as if something had bitten it, puncturing a vein. The blood ran in a stream, not pumping, like it would from an artery, but rather, pouring out, like water through a hose. Then his neck bled, and it was worse. Trying to brush away legions of bugs, Steven swathed himself in blood, spreading it over his body like a balm, but nothing did any good.

  The dog, still watching from the far side of the lot, trotted around the car and bit Steven just above his left ankle. The pain was astonishing, a white-hot needle of agony, but it shocked Steven awake. ‘Ah! Jesus Christ, help me!’ he screamed before falling backwards to the pavement.

  ‘Ah! Jesus Christ, help me!’ Steven screamed, rolling over before slipping back into a stupor.

  ‘I’m losing him,’ Gilmour muttered. ‘This isn’t good.’ The Morning Star took another wave badly, crashing hard into the trough.

  ‘Marrin,’ Captain Ford whispered, ‘what in the names of the Northern Gods are you doing up there?’

  Gilmour looked up at him. ‘Go; it’s all right. There’s nothing you can do for him. Send Garec down, or Kellin or Brexan – I need some water and some bedding, anything to make him more comfortable. But you see to the ship.’

  ‘The spell you mentioned, the one keeping us…’

  ‘Out of their attention?’

  ‘Yes, that one.’ He made certain to step on the spider-beetle at least once more. ‘Will it keep going? Or did our plans just go exceedingly wrong?’

  ‘We should be fine,’ Gilmour said. He didn’t want to sound insecure, not this close to Pellia. Get them going, and they’ll go on for ever, like the Twinmoon. He cradled Steven’s head in his lap. ‘It’ll be all right, Captain.’

  Steven had rolled in the puddle of his own blood, and now looked as though he had been dipped in crimson paint. Captain Ford backed against the bulkhead, sidling towards the stairs through the main hatch. ‘Good luck,’ he said softly, heartfelt.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Captain,’ the Larion Senator muttered, wiping Steven’s face.

  Captain Ford nearly crashed through the handrail as the Morning Star lurched over a wave. As he fought to keep his balance, he shouted, ‘Marrin! Will you rutting well watch where you’re going!’ He reached daylight, and stopped short. Marrin was at the helm, as ordered, but there was something very definitely wrong. Garec, the partisan killer, had an arrow drawn full, aimed right at his first mate.

  Garec was shouting, ‘Correct our course, Marrin, now!’

  Confused, Captain Ford started to reach for Garec, then he checked their heading. The Morning Star was bearing down on a Malakasian fishing trawler, the biggest one they could see working the shallows. It looked horribly like Marrin meant to ram them.

  ‘What are you …’ He was stunned. Should he tackle Garec and try to disarm him? Or mount the quarterdeck and slap some sense into his first mate?

  Garec shouted again, ‘Correct our heading, Marrin! Do it now!’

  Steven was running. It was the day of the half-marathon, his favourite day of the year, and he, Hannah and Mark had joined the four thousand other runners to do the thirteen-mile course from Georgetown, down the canyon, to Idaho Springs. Each summer, he tried to improve on his previous time. Despite the altitude – the Georgetown starting line was almost 9,000 feet above sea level – after a two-mile loop through Georgetown, the rest of the course was little more than eleven miles of downhill running, making this one of the easiest half-marathons on Steven’s dance card. All he did was get to the initial slope, point himself downhill and let go. Gravity did most of the work. The only drawback was the sun. Running east down the canyon, there was nothing between the runners and the morning sun rising over the prairie east of Denver, and it was a merciless running partner. Every year, it seemed, Steven managed to run beside some fool who had forgotten sunglasses, some complainer determined to ruin the race by bitching about it all the way down the hill.

  This year, it was his turn.

  ‘I can’t believe I forgot the goddamned things,’ he muttered, looking down to avoid being blinded. ‘This is no kind of view to have, eleven miles of macadam. Christ.’

  He had left Mark back about a mile. His friend was an accomplished swimmer, but he was no competitive runner. He didn’t enjoy long races like Steven did, but came along for the workout, and the view – not the spectacular natural beauty of the canyon; rather, the appreciation of the number of healthy, trim, female backsides that filled the course.

  ‘There’s never a bad one,’ he always said, ‘it’s a goddamned summer camp for great tail. Follow one for a while, get bored with it and pick another. Sometimes she’s up ahead a bit; other times, I slow down and let her pass. It’s worth all the training, all those miles and all that pain just to be able to jog along behind this crop of perfectly formed women. There’s not an excess ounce of fat for thirteen miles.’

  ‘What about your own?’ Steven asked. ‘Do you imagine any of those women – or men, for that matter – are out there jogging along behind you, taking in your caboose? How does that make you feel, Mr Politically Incorrect?’

  ‘Goddamned great!’ Mark didn’t hesitate. ‘Let ‘em look – if they enjoy the view, hey, it’s a party! If we all find someone to follow out there, it’ll be a raving hootenanny!’

  Thinking about Mark and his voyeuristic urges made Steven speed up. Ahead, a hundred yards or so, he thought he caught sight of Hannah; she’d left him and Mark at mile eight, determined to cut time off her personal best. Steven dropped his hands, squinted into the sun and ran to catch up.

  He couldn’t. A quarter-mile further on, she was still a hundred yards out. ‘Yikes, Hannah, but you are motoring today,’ he panted.

  She was running alone. With her hair pulled into a ponytail and looped through the one-size-fits-all band on t
he back of her baseball cap, Hannah looked like ten thousand women Steven had followed along dozens of courses over the past five years. Even from this distance, running hard and sucking wind, Steven loved the look of her: the way her clothes fit, the way her hair bobbed up and down, the delicate taper of her tanned legs. Wearing a cropped T-shirt that just brushed the waistband of her shorts, Hannah was an unreachable mirage in the distance, lost periodically in the glare. When he could find her without squinting, Steven did stare, watching her run, wanting to feel her press against him as she slept. He was getting horny; that had never happened during a race before.

  ‘Get your head on straight, dipshit. Pay attention to what you’re doing,’ he chided himself. ‘Catch up to her if you’re that hot and bothered.’ He dropped his hands, lowered his shoulders a bit and speeded up. He would be near death at the finish line, blind and dehydrated, but he wanted to catch her. Panting, he cursed the sun for rising and cursed himself for forgetting his glasses. ‘When you’re running, run,’ he said, and thought that notion felt somehow familiar, like an old blanket he might have thrown over himself, over his friends and their ship.

  ‘Ship? What are you thinking, dipshit? Let’s go, move it! What ship? You’re getting delusional! Drink some water.’

  Hannah ran on, the balls of her feet barely touching the broken yellow line, but Steven slowly closed the distance, passing people, lots of them, hundreds of runners, all plodding along at the same pace.

  Mile ten.

  ‘I can’t keep this up,’ he gasped, and moved to the side of the road. At least there he could use the bit of shade from the ponderosas to clear his vision. ‘She’s too fast,’ he told himself.

  At mile eleven, he saw the dog, someone’s wolfhound, broken free from its owner. Loping along at an easy jog, the dog ran beside him, uninterested in the other runners, apparently unwilling to leave the struggling bank administrator behind.