by Paul Kidd
A bright purple beam shot out and struck the gamma moth that swooped above her. She blew its head clean off. The body gave off a mad blaze of radiation and blundered off into the wilderness. Xoota shook her head, her eyes dazzled by the flashes of radiation in the darkness, but there was no time to recover. Another death bolt stabbed down from above.
She tried to dive aside, but a gamma moth flashed past, smacking into her with its wings. Xoota felt radiation burn her, almost crippling her with pain. She leveled her pistol but saved the shot. The moth had disappeared in the night.
As she looked down the beach, lights suddenly showed the outline of a man, dancing clumsily around. A gamma moth fired from above, and the man seemed to swirl and tumble, dodging aside as the moth flew down, hoping to crash into its prey.
Glowing happily with his alpha bio lights, Wig-wig flew apart. He had used his many parts to assume the shape of a man, but a second later, he was nothing but a cloud of black specks in the dark. The moth crashed hard into the ground, where it was easy pickings for Rustle, who emerged from his sand trap and chomped it in his jaws.
“Oh, hell no,” exclaimed Xoota. She had told the damned plant to keep clear. She ran to Rustle and smacked him behind his bulging head, hammering him with the flat of her hand.
“Drop it. Drop it. Bad. Bad Rustle. Bad.” Finally Rustle’s jaws came open. A dead moth toppled out onto the sand. Xoota hauled the plant well aside, already feeling sick and faint from its still-potent fallout.
Shaani came running with her little medical kit open. She yanked down Xoota’s pants, found a patch of backside, and pushed a spray injector against her skin. The injector hissed as it sprayed antiradiation meds into her. The lab rat looked at her friend with anxiety. “There. Sit still. Let it work. Get all your gear off and wash it in the ocean.” She reloaded her injector and found a patch of Rustle’s shiny bark that seemed far softer than most. She sprayed it with the drug, hoping the damned thing would work on plants. “Rustle, are you all right?”
The plant looked rather sick; clearly radioactive, killer moth was not part of his regular diet.
Shaani grabbed her two patients and charged them toward the beach. “Right, in the water, both of you. Wash off then come out, get naked, and get dry.” She called back to Benek and Wig-wig. “Stay vigilant, chaps. Oppenheimer only knows what else might be out here. We’ll rinse off and race back to the ship.”
The rat stripped off herself then Xoota. The dizzy quoll felt the ancient medicines surging through her veins. Shaani, Xoota, and Rustle splashed into the freezing cold ocean, feeling the waves pull and suck at them. Shaani dunked Xoota’s head, making sure any radioactive particles were washed well clear.
When Xoota surfaced, she spit out water, blinking salt water from her eyes. “You see? A perfectly brilliant plan.”
“Quite.” Shaani dunked the quoll under water yet again. “Now do be quiet and just wash.”
The end of a titanic quest was finally at hand; the ancient desalination plant that fed water (albeit accidentally) all the way to Watering Hole had finally been found. The adventurers occupied the site in the morning, dragging food and drinking water over from the ship. Radioactive carrion was hooked by grappling ropes and dragged away into the distant sand hills.
The dark, gloomy pump buildings were littered with old bones. There were several pupae up on the ceiling, each one about a meter and a half long, wrapped in radioactive, glowing silk cocoons. Shaani gave them a cursory look and declared that it would be at least a week until they depupated and turned into lethal moths. She then ignored the cocoons completely and began crawling all over the ancient machinery.
Somewhere below the ground, big pumps were working. There had once been an inspection tunnel that led down to the pump rooms, but it was completely filled with the salt water that came cascading up out of the top of the broken pipes and flowed onto the concrete floor. Apparently it all drained away into the desert “power” pipeline; it certainly wasn’t damaging the pumps.
The problem was the salt, tons and tons of salt.
The plant seemed to work by superheating seawater and condensing the steam into pure water, which was then fed into the main pipes. The salt was sluiced off to a conveyor and into hoppers on the far side of the hill. But since the gamma moths had fried the machinery, the salt was no longer carried off on a conveyor belt; instead, it had piled up at the head of the belt, cascaded down onto the floor, and immediately mixed itself with the water that bubbled all over the concrete. The remixed salt water then sped off down the desert pipe. It was a simple enough fix in its way: just get the conveyor belt moving once again.
There were deep drifts of salt all over the floor. The hard crystals had jammed the conveyor belt and frozen it solid. Xoota, the mighty arboreal quoll, was voted to work high above the ground and chip the mechanism free of encrusted salt. Benek and Rustle were deputized to shovel the salt away from the pump house floor. Shaani and Wig-wig bustled up into the machinery to check out the electrical wiring and set things to rights once more.
The work up above the ground was dirty, parched, and damned unpleasant. The salt had hardened like concrete, and freeing the conveyor belt was no mean feat. Wig-wig bustled around, high up in the air, clearing the main mechanism of salt, rust, and old birds’ nests. Shaani and Xoota toiled all through the heat of the day, ending up scorched and burned by salt for their troubles.
Down on the factory floor, much of the salt had solidified as hard as rock. Benek regarded the horrible mass with his fists on his hips, as if seeing it as a personal insult. He then began hacking at the bottom of the salt stacks. Rustle watched him with interest, making no move whatsoever to help.
After an hour, Benek pulled out of the hole he had been digging for himself. The plant was watching him, smiling with all three mouths, wonderfully entertained.
Benek glared at the creature resentfully and wiped himself down with a towel. “What are you grinning at, beast?”
One of the plant’s heads turned to look at the huge salt mass, then back at Benek.
The human haughtily took up his pick and shovel. “Well, if you have a better idea, I’d like to see you try it.” Benek went back to digging.
Rustle ambled off and began drawing something in the sand.
Half an hour later, Xoota came slithering down behind the massive salt hoppers to find Benek. She was wearing nothing but her pants and a halter. “Benek? Benek. Oi! Stop digging.”
The human prized free a chunk of rock salt and flicked a sweaty glance at the quoll. He scowled at the sight of her wearing almost nothing but her spotty fur. “You are underdressed.”
“I’ve been working.” The quoll girl scowled. “Quit looking at my pouch.”
The human sniffed. “I have no interest in your … your marsupial accoutrements.” The man turned back to his work. “What do you want?”
“Well, you can stop now. No need to dig.”
The man kept on hacking away at the salt pile. “Why?”
“We’re about to fix the problem.”
Benek stopped, sweat slathered, salt burned, and exhausted. He looked blankly up at Xoota. “How?”
Rustle stood beaming away with his triple grin above the salt piles. Shaani had just finished planting pipe bombs beneath the mass. She waved everyone into cover then held up a copper wire in her hand.
“Fire in the hole.”
Everyone ducked. A triple boom crashed through the building. Salt chunks went flying through the air. The entire mass shattered, flying up into the air in chunks, shards, and choking dust.
Rustle used an old hose to blast the remnant salt chunks out of the building and off down the hill. Benek glared at the plant, set aside his shovel, and walked away.
Half an hour later, Shaani clambered up into the desalination plant. She touched a few wires together, made some sparks, and suddenly the machinery began to hum. Some salt came crashing down from the machine to land on the conveyor belt. The belt moved slowl
y, carrying the salt clear of the outlet. It then stopped, waiting for the next load of salt.
Shaani looked it over and called down happily from above. “That’s it. It’s working.”
Xoota yelled back up. “The belt stopped moving.”
“It only moves when the salt builds to a certain weight. It should be fine.” Still covered in paint from her native celebrations two nights before, the rat gathered up her tools. On the roof behind her, the gamma moth pupae still hung from the ceiling.
Xoota pointed toward them. “What about the moths?”
Shaani looked back. “I’ve opened up the roof panels to let the light stream in. Moths hate the light. These ones will sod off and find new digs the moment they hatch.” The rat lowered herself down the rusty, old machinery. “Nope, all’s well. We are now officially the saviors of Watering Hole.”
Shaani dropped to the ground. Water—clear, pure water—was fountaining up behind her, splashing down the newly cleaned concrete, and gurgling down into the ground. The rat tasted the water then drank her fill. She unpicked her long ponytail then plunged herself joyously under the shower. She emerged long minutes later, shaking herself dry like a dog.
“Right. Benek. Sorry about the delay, old chap. Noblesse oblige and all that. We’ll get you on your date at last?” The rat strolled past Benek, wringing her glorious long, white hair dry. “Let’s go put the kettle on.”
Their great mission was over at long last.
In the morning Shaani and Xoota walked from the ship back to the desalination plant. They labored up the sandy gullies as odd little insects that looked liked flying stingrays took to the air around them. Dawn was spreading cool and rosy fingered across the wonderful ocean as they topped the final hill.
They stood together, savoring the ocean breeze. The sight and feel of the sea was magical, something no desert dweller could ever truly have dreamed. They watched it together for a while and enjoyed the silence.
The desalination plant seemed to be working without a hitch. The equipment hummed, the water bubbled, and as they watched, the conveyor belt jerked into life and moved the salt onward. It all seemed oddly peaceful and wonderfully right.
Xoota scratched her pink-tipped snout in thought. “So why is it working? Don’t these things need power?”
“They need oodles of it.” Shaani sniffed as if hunting for a scent. Her electrical sense was highly tuned. “Broadcast power, from over that way, I should think.”
“Benek’s little building?”
“Oh, much bigger than that, I’d say.” The rat stood, looking to the east, holding her straw hat onto her head. “I’d say it’s from his mighty starport. We must be fairly close.”
“Well, that will please him.” The quoll looked over the conveyor belt again. “So it will keep working, then?”
“Yes, it all seems pukkah.”
Xoota looked back at the pumps. “Should we just leave those pupae up there? What about when they hatch?”
“Oh, leave them. The next meal they make might be something that was planning on eating us.”
“Oh.” Xoota nodded. “When you put it that way, I suppose so.”
“Ravening mutant monsters are just a part of the local ecosystem.” Shaani passed Xoota a bottle of iced tea. “It takes all kinds.”
When they returned to the ship, she stood ready and waiting, her tall masts beautiful in the morning light. She was a lovely sight, rugged and competent, with her balloon tires and her jaunty bowsprit. She’d become their home on their journey.
Budgie was digging happily around the bushes, finding edible roots for his breakfast. Xoota scratched him behind his head, and he chirred happily. They all mounted up the rear ramp and headed on deck to ready the ship for travel.
Rustle stood on deck in a tub of nice, wet compost, possibly still asleep; it was hard to tell. Wig-wig was taking breakfast by the railings; the deck was covered with earwigs large and small, all munching on fruit, banana skins, and porridge. Shaani headed up the mainmast to spy out the best route east, while Xoota poked around to try to find where Benek had gone.
She found him in the shadow of the deckhouse. Benek was sullenly playing his “training game,” working to beat the high scores of the mysterious “G.I.A.N.T.” Xoota sat on the rail, her tail curling, and watched him for a while. “Benek, have you ever thought that you should just enjoy the sheer wonder and variety in the world?”
The muscular man looked at her without a single spark of affection. “The world is wrong. We must act to fix it. Even the rat can understand the concept.”
“Shaani wants to build something beautiful out of all the wonderful possibilities she sees around her. She is a believer.” The quoll tilted her head and watched Benek carefully. “How about you, Benek? What is it that you believe?”
The man set his game aside. “I believe in destiny.”
Also interesting news. Xoota’s ears and antennae lifted expressively high. “Right.” She rose to leave. “Well, we’re setting sail toward that omega building of yours. Might be there by midmorning, if the wind holds.” The quoll looked at Benek, who did not return the favor. “We appreciate everything you’ve done, Benek. We’ll help you do your thing now. Don’t worry.”
Xoota walked away, feeling a tingle of warning in her antennae. Something was not quite right. She walked over to join the others as Shaani slid down to the deck to hand back the binoculars.
“Trouble with Benek?”
Xoota’s ears were flat. “There’s something going on here. Part of me wonders if we should just kill him and eat him.”
Rustle took the idea on board. He gaped all three mouths open and eagerly waggled his tentacles.
Shaani gave Xoota a patient look. “No. I don’t think so.”
Rustle immediately pouted.
The quoll grumbled. “I know. He’s probably too chewy, anyway.”
“Let’s just get the ship under way.” Shaani headed for the mainsail winch. “Noblesse oblige and all that.”
Xoota headed to the control cabin and signaled to get under way. The hand brake was released, the mainsail sheeted home. With her engines humming softly to take her up into the breeze, the ship caught the wind, moved gracefully up onto a hilltop, then rolled away across the grassy plains.
The sea breeze was constant and moved the ship smoothly inland. She took a wide turn past the sandstone outcrops near the shore and moved deeper into the plains. In the distance, they could see the Plodder tribe, still ambling ever so slowly along. The ship mounted a long, smooth plateau, and started slowly tacking into the breeze, heading skillfully across the wind. Two-headed emus watched them pass, blinking in confusion from the safety of nearby rocks.
Xoota mounted Budgie and ranged ahead, scouting for a way through a field of boulders. Just beyond the rocks, she found herself looking down on a quiet, little dell. Benek’s alien building sat in the middle of a broad patch of well-overgrown grass. The building formed a long, low Y shape, raised off the ground on squat pylons four meters high. A hexagonal patch of concrete lay off to one side, weeds jutting up through cracks in the surface here and there. A row of tall, gleaming fence posts surrounded the entire area, but no wire was stretched between the posts.
Nothing moved. The only sign of life was a dead bird in the middle of the concrete hexagon. It seemed to have been on the receiving end of a nasty accident; there was nothing but a beak and feathers surrounding a burned hole where its body once had been.
Grisly, thought Xoota. She looked the site over and pondered.
The ship came rumbling up the hill slope behind her, apparently able to navigate the boulders without her help. Shaani engaged the electric motors to bring the ship up to the crest. Xoota signaled and the ship dropped her sails. She turned to point her nose back downhill before putting on the hand brakes and locking herself in place. The crew came to the rails to look over the old omega buildings.
Xoota sat cross-legged upon Budgie and called up to the others. “It
looks pretty intact. What do you guys make of it?”
Benek was staring avidly at the buildings through his telescope.
Shaani hung from the railings, secured by her long, pink tail, and examined the alien fence line. “If it’s intact, it’s intact for a reason. We’ll proceed with great care on this one.”
“Absolutely.” Xoota was very suspicious of the fence, or the lack thereof. “Follow my lead on this one. No one split off from the party. Benek, do you hear me?”
“I hear you.” The man was already arming himself. “Come.”
The whole area was clearly transplanted from another Earth. The plants did not match with those out on the plain. As they made their way down, they passed a stand of fat, green cacti that would have been more at home in Watering Hole. They stopped well short of the fence line, and everyone ducked down into cover—all except for Rustle, of course, who loomed overhead, essentially untroubled by the world.
Benek looked past the posts at the building beyond. “A fortress. Perhaps it’s an armory.”
Shaani scowled. “It does look a tad grim.” She slowly thrashed her tail, examining what looked like a gun turret at the top of the building. “Fortresses have ways of protecting themselves. So let us just be careful.”
Xoota edged closer to the fence line. The fence poles were humming softly. Her antennae gave off a definite warning. The quoll grubbed around herself and found a rock. She tossed it between the fence posts and nothing happened. The rock sailed through and thudded down into the long, tall grass.
“Excellent,” said Benek as he started to rise.
Xoota made a noise to halt Benek. “Hold your budgies there, son.” The quoll lifted a finger. “Shaani? What do you think?”
The rat carefully examined the fence posts. She held up a hand to signal everyone to kindly sit back and wait. “Pardon me, chaps. Let me just try a little something.” The rat found a rock and placed it under her armpit. She let it stay there for quite a while, looking apologetic over the delay. She whistled between her big, chisel teeth to pass the time. Finally satisfied, she removed the rock and lobbed it gently underhand between the nearest fence posts.