by Paul Kidd
A vast, dark shape flashed past the ship: rocks looming higher than the mast. The ship missed a rock outcrop by a whisker’s breadth. Shaani stared, watching rocks flash past in fright.
The ship almost capsized. But Xoota somehow got the ship back onto its wheels. She felt her fur standing on end.
There was a sudden, wrenching crash. Xoota was flung from her seat to slam against the windscreen. She bounced back, unhurt; her previous day’s alpha mutation shielded her from impact as she felt the whole ship come smashing to a halt.
Glass broke. There was a splintering noise as one of the masts tore free and fell. The ship’s nose bucked and slammed down into soft sand. Xoota was on the floor. She heard Budgie screeching and Wig-wig wailing in alarm. The wind howled in through a broken window. “Shaani!”
The rat was hanging from her seat belt straps; she was the only one who ever buckled up. Shaani stared, dazed, then fumbled for her buckle.
The headlights on one side were clearly smashed. The foremast had fallen on top of the control cabin and dented the roof. Xoota coughed then crawled over to help Shaani untangle herself from her straps.
“Shaani. Are you okay?”
“Th-think we had a bit of a bingle.” The rat shook her head, trying to clear her mind. “Gods, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Xoota blinked, looked at the crack in the windscreen her body had made on impact, and thanked Darwin for alpha mutations. “You check the damage below. I’ll check the deck.”
Xoota pulled down her sand goggles and made it out onto the deck in the blinding wind. The foremast had fallen, crashing down atop the control cabin in a tangle of cables and rigging. The jib still held on, streaming from the bowsprit like a strip of laundry left in the wind. The mainmast still stood, but the rigging was torn. Xoota fought her way forward against the wind and opened the door into the sleeping cabin.
The place was a mess. Bedding, food, and weapons were everywhere. “Benek.”
“I’m here.” The massive human had his arm in a sling. He was stiff with pain and seemed angry. “What happened now?”
“Collision. We’re still checking the damage.” The quoll looked over the cabin—nothing but cosmetic damage. “We’ll check the hold.”
Wig-wig was in a frenzy in the hold. Budgie was terrified by the accident, leaping around and screeching. Xoota and Benek fought their way past the maddened budgerigar. Their feet splashed in water, and Xoota’s stomach fell.
Oh, kack.
The ship’s water was currently spread through two tanks, port and starboard. The starboard tank had broken its supports and wrenched down onto the deck. Water was leaking from somewhere underneath. The quoll flung herself flat and tried to see beneath.
A jack, she thought. Xoota had kept the jack she found in an old car in the desert. It was in the ship’s tool chest. She leaped to her feet.
“I’ll get tools. Try and plug the hole. Benek, pump the water to the port-side tank.”
She ran to the back of the hold. The old car jack was among the jumble of tangled, fallen tools. Xoota came running back to find Wig-wig racing all over the fallen water tank, trying to pull a patch of tar paper over the leak. Wig-wig was terrified of the water. Since they breathed through their little armpits, they didn’t get on well with puddles. Benek was helping, trying to reach awkwardly under the tank to help the bugs. For Benek, that was a whole new horizon of cooperation. Xoota got down onto her back, inspected under the tank, and tried to fit the jack into place.
“Benek, can you lever the tank upwards? Just a few centimeters would do it.”
“I can try.”
The huge man took hold of a beam and shoved it under the heavy tank. He set his stance, put his shoulders under the beam, and lifted upward. His whole body shook with effort as he lifted up a two hundred–kilo tank. Xoota put herself under the tank, trusting his strength, and slotted the car jack into place. She crawled back out, fitted the jack handle, and frenziedly spun the crank.
“Okay, Benek, I’ve got it.”
Working together, they lifted the tank up into place. Benek jogged the tank back onto its mountings. They would need to fit new bolts and straps. Wig-wig raced around the cracked lower corner of the tank, busily pulling tape and glue all over the leak.
Water was all over the floor and seeping out into the sands. They must have lost another hundred liters at least. And it was water they couldn’t possibly replace.
The forward hatch creaked open. Shaani, covered in dust, climbed through into the hold. She had been outside on the sand. The rat sank wearily down atop a locker and peeled her sand goggles up from her eyes. The goggles had left white circles of clean fur on her dust-stained face.
She reached for a drink, looking bleakly at the damaged water tank. The wind was still raging and howling. “We’ve lost the starboard front wheel.” The rat looked tired and dispirited. “It hit solid rock. Sheared the mounting clean off.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Oppenheimer only knows.” Shaani rubbed at her eyes. “I suppose so. Science can fix anything …” She pointed to the water staining the deck. “Did we lose much?”
“Maybe a hundred liters.”
“Bother.”
The wind howled. Shaani put her broad straw hat back on her head. “Well, we can’t make any outside repairs until the storm abates, so I’ll weld the tank. We can set things to rights in the sleeping cabin and the hold and hope we’re not buried by sand.” She stroked Budgie’s head. “Let’s clean up, have a decent meal, then try to sleep.”
Benek reached down with his good hand and helped her to her feet.
Xoota dusted herself clean. “Right. It’s a plan.” She started up the ladder. “I’ll do lunch.” Benek looked at her. “I was unaware that you can cook.”
The quoll looked at her companions with great dignity. “I can cook anything that has legs.”
“Legs?”
“When the legs stop moving, it’s done …” The quoll headed upstairs. “Right. Food, sleep, then tomorrow is another day.”
She disappeared. Benek watched as Shaani struggled wearily up the ladder. He waited for the earwigs to swarm up the walls then followed the others into the cabin.
Behind him, Budgie sank down to try to get a decent night’s sleep.
Fortunately there were always more goober nuts.
In the morning, Xoota awoke feeling her usual, grumpy self. There was drool on her pillow, her fur stuck out in a thousand directions, and she was naked except for one lime green sock.
She had sand all through her fur. It itched and she was well aware of the irony of actually craving a bath. It took her a moment of confusion before she remembered that the ship was a wreck, the wheel had come off, and they had been blown far, far from their course. Cursing, she levered herself up out of bed, found clean underwear and relatively clean socks, and dressed while peering out of a cabin window.
Benek had gone. His bed was rumpled and cold. Shaani’s bed was neatly made, a clear sign that they were already up and about. She had left extra porridge for Xoota’s breakfast. Only Wig-wig was still in the cabin. The earwig horde was sleeping in a nest of damp leaves, bark, and sticks. Xoota ate swiftly, eying the windows. Her antennae sifted the world for potential troubles.
The storm had stopped. The silence was wonderful. Xoota armored up and slung her shield across her back and her mace through her belt. Sunglasses went down onto her nose. Crossbow loaded and in hand, she emerged from the cabin and took a look at the world.
Sand dunes stood silent and utterly still. The silence was so pure that it almost seemed alive.
The ship was awash in a vast ocean of sand. Deep sand dunes were all around her, stretching off to the far, far west. But here and there, outcrops of alien green stone jutted high into the air. Scattered around, caught in the boulders, weird tufted grasses grew. The tuft grass stood stiff and still in the windless air. It only made the place seem more empty, more silent.
Yawning, Xoota opened her jaws in a ninety-degree marsupial gape. Scratching herself, she turned toward the bow. She stared in shock, looking up, up, up … ever higher. Her tail drooped behind her.
“Bleeding heck.”
The ship had run into an island, a vast chunk of eerie, green rock that had somehow grown out of the desert. It was a kilometer wide and soared three hundred meters above the desert sands. The top seemed to be flat. Xoota could see a hint of green foliage peeking over the edge. Birds flew around the island, wheeling in the distance. The giant rock column literally formed an island in the sky. Vast, stunning, majestic …
And the Sand Shark had run smack into the damned thing.
The ship must have hit a boulder about a hundred meters back, lost her front right wheel, then plowed into a deep sand drift that stood at the base of the immense rock island. Her foremast lay in a tangle of wrecked rigging, and the entire deck was ankle deep in sand.
Xoota gave a curse. Ah well, if you were going to hit something, make it an impressive something.
And damn, but it was impressive. Xoota craned her neck to look up at the top of the sky island. It seemed fertile up there. In fact, it looked pretty damned lush. It was a breathtaking sight to find just sitting there among the dead, dry sands.
Rat footprints went back along the wake of the ship to where the lost wheel jutted from the sand. There had been some digging; Shaani had been investigating the damage, uncovering the sheared-off shank of the wheel mount. But then, in typical style, the footprints went straight to the rocky cliff, meandering up the sand piles. She had done her usual trick and become enthralled by a new discovery.
Xoota gave another curse. She stuck her head back into the sleeping cabin. “Wig-wig, wakey-wakey. We have to go.”
Xoota opened a deck hatch. Budgie was still asleep down in the hold, kicking his feet in is little budgie dreams. He had food and water, Shaani’s handiwork once again. Xoota descended and filled two canteens, thought about it, and filled two more. She found some lengths of rope, took a couple of insect bars, and clambered back up onto the deck.
Budgie, she could tell, pretended to still be asleep, hoping to avoid any potential work.
Wig-wig was up and bustling around. Some of the earwigs were eating and drinking, licking the porridge pot clean. Others were yawning in a deliberate mimicking of Xoota’s marsupial ninety-degree gape. The largest earwigs—an impressive ten centimeters long—came tromping up to Xoota and waved hello. “We fixing ship, yes?”
“Yeah. Just as soon as we track down our shipmates.” The quoll felt a really good grumble session coming on. “Let’s go find the idiots.”
“Yay. Find the idiots.” Smaller earwigs chorused happily as they spread wings and started to fly. “Idiots.”
Surrounded by a swarm of happy bugs, Xoota tromped her way out onto the deck. The bowsprit made a handy bridge to the top of the sand mounds. With her tail and arms for balance, Xoota made her way across and stepped onto the absurdly soft sands below.
Shaani’s footprints were joined by another set, probably Benek’s given the size of the damned things. Both sets of prints headed for a deep, ragged crevice in the side of the rock island. There the rock made a sharp upward slope full of boulders and handholds. Xoota looked up, saw no sign of her companions, and began to clamber up across the rocks.
The rock felt cool. Thankfully it wasn’t slick. Green marble seemed to be caught in a matrix of rough, gray stone. Xoota propelled herself upward with sturdy thighs, her hands and tail gripping the rocks to speed her way to the top. Wig-wig kept her company, sometimes surging ahead to scout for danger. He did find a rather natty little radioactive rock python, and almost had a showdown with a small, hypnotic toad. Xoota chucked a rock at the toad to chase it away and kept right on climbing.
At the halfway point, she stopped for a breather and looked around. The view was simply beautiful.
The poor ship, broken and unhappy, stood a hundred and fifty meters below. But the desert spread out, pink and beige in the morning sun. The dunes of new-blown sand were perfectly formed. No tracks marked the dust.
She loved the desert. Despite the heat and dust, it was a place of stark, majestic beauty. The quoll took a long, quiet moment just to drink in the sight, the feel, the glory. Sand and stone, dust and dry, with life existing everywhere if you only knew how to look.
Xoota searched the horizon and saw no dust clouds, no smoke, no settlements, no plants—only more of the strange rock columns, all of them only a fraction of the size of the colossal sky island. She took a last look, enjoying the silence, then turned back to the climb. Wig-wig fluttered all around her as she made her way to the top.
The quoll climbed up over a final ledge of rock. She looked into a land of breathtaking, living green.
A jungle grew on top of the huge plateau.
Xoota stared. Never in her life had she seen so much green—so many different plants, all lush and damp and growing. It was a place of shade and big, verdant ferns. Vast fig trees grew high into the air, their trunks fluted and folded, their massive branches spreading dense, green umbrellas that shut out the sun. There was a thick smell of growing things and of rotting leaves and sap heated by the searing sun.
Silver birds flapped in the distance. Across the treetops, Xoota saw the crumbled top of an ancient tower. Her fur stood on end, alive with a sense of absolute awe.
There were some bangs and crashes coming from the nearby trees, noises that combined with happy little rat sounds. Crossbow ready for danger, Xoota signaled to Wig-wig to fly top cover. She advanced stealthily through waist-high grass.
The happy rat sounds were coming from over to the right. Xoota shook her head and tramped off in pursuit.
The ground rose, the soil somehow well watered and moist. Just across the rise, the ground formed a little, grassy hollow.
A decaying bird-fish creature lay on the ground. Jutting up from its rib cage was a long-stemmed plant topped with a growing green bud. A little farther on, another scatter of bones surrounded another stalk. A whole stand of the same plants filled the center of the hollow, each plant topped by a juicy, purple bud.
The dead bird-fish-thing still stank. Xoota gave it a wide berth, moving toward the plants. Her antennae twitched; the girl blinked, saw a future, and rolled spectacularly head over heels.
Something materialized behind her with a sharp crack. A shiny object the size of an egg thudded to the ground. The quoll girl blinked, her antennae in overdrive, and she lunged sideways, rolled, and sprinted aside.
She saw it as it happened. Things blinked into midair just behind and beside her. Shiny, brown eggs just appeared from nowhere. Xoota stared then ducked as an egg materialized right in the air her head had been occupying.
The plants.
The stand of plants had all turned to face her. They hummed. A glow enveloped the nearest stalks. Xoota ran, weaving erratically. Seeds teleported into the space beside her, displacing air with a loud, violent crack.
“Holy kack!”
She dodged like a mad thing. A seed the size of a hen’s egg materialized right where she had stood, making a sharp zapping noise. Xoota dived and rolled. Another seed appeared right behind her. She ran, dodging crazily to shake off the enemy fire. Leaping across a patch of weeds, she came face-to-face with a decaying skeleton; a fish-bird, still gooey, with one of the plants growing up right out of its skull.
“Gah.”
The plant hummed, the bulb turning to face her. Xoota saw a stand of fallen trees ahead of her. She launched herself into the tangled timber, catching onto a plant branch with her tail and jerking to a stop. A seed appeared right in front of her. She raced on, over a dirt mound, ran madly sideways, and flung herself into cover.
Panting raggedly, her fur standing on end with shock, she stared back toward the deadly plants. Her antennae were quaking with shock.
A cheerful voice called out to her from the trees.
“Spiffy. There you are.” Shaan
i waved from the trees, in fine form—straw hat; great, baggy shorts; and chainsaw all neat and shiny in the sun. “Mind the plants. They can be a bit aggro.”
Xoota flattened her ears. “Thanks for the heads-up on that one.” Xoota wearily stood up. “You seem to have had no problems.”
“Oh, no. The carrion was the clue. Caution prevailed. Logic overcame.” The rat walked merrily over the grass. “Anyway, they only shoot at you or predict your current course and speed. If you stagger merrily about at random, you’re as safe as houses. Bit of a spree, what?”
Xoota looked at her friend with a patience she never knew she possessed. “What are you doing up here all alone?”
“Oh, you were out like a lamp. Thought I’d take a constitutional then just got a tad distracted.” The rat seemed gloriously happy. “I found something for you.”
“For me?”
“Well of course for you.” Shaani slapped Xoota on the back. “This way.” The rat held up a hand and let earwigs alight on her. “Morning, Wig-wig.”
“Good morning, rattie.”
In among the trees, hidden from all but the sharp eyes of an inquisitive rat, there was something weird—something wonderful. Xoota stared at it in awe.
It was a vehicle. It had to be. But it was a vehicle without wheels.
In shape, it looked a little like an egg: a narrowed nose covered in glass and a smooth body as wide as the sleeping cabin of the Sand Shark. It had no wings, no wheels. The skin of the vehicle seemed to be some sort of metal, but it was unmarked by rust. It had landed on four solid legs that had extended from underneath the hull. Vines and weeds had grown up and through the landing gear and choked part of the hull.