by Greg Keyes
Sand reached her house, heard the Whipper still coming, off in the distance. She gasped the unlocking codes and had to repeat the third, so short of breath was she. The door popped open at her touch. She thrust herself inside.
Tuchvala looked up with an unpracticed but recognizable gape of fear.
“We’re going, now,” Sand told her, brushing past into the small apartment. She ran to the kitchen, frantically hoping that her cousins hadn’t found the one thing she needed now, most of all. They hadn’t—it was still there, hidden in the compartment behind the water tap. Sand checked it once, the smooth, black object. Then she rushed back to the door and locked it securely.
“What? What is this?” Tuchvala asked.
“Just follow me, Tuchvala. Just shut up and follow me.”
Sand slapped the rear wall of the room, and it slid aside to reveal a window half a meter square. Sand backed up, ran, and leapt, kicking the window with both feet. The resulting recoil spilled her heavily onto the floor, but the window responded by giving somewhat beneath her attack. Sand jumped up and pounded on it with both hands, and on the third strike, the whole pane burst out of its fitting with a high-pitched thwimp. It clattered to the stone outside. Sand poked her head through, not quite cautiously, motioned for Tuchvala to follow her. Sand desperately surveyed the surrounding houses and rooftops as the other woman crawled clumsily out of the open window. She could no longer hear the Whipper at all, and she knew that he was supposed to be able to move without the slightest sound if he wanted. Was he at her door?
Tuchvala was through, and Sand pointed out their route across the uneven layers of houses. Tuchvala nodded, and together they started running. Beyond, in the east, the sky was thickening with dark color, and in the north Moon was peeking over Yellow Corn Mountain. They ran through the cooling air, silent save for the sound of their feet.
Sand felt a tingle on her spine that was not natural, and Tuchvala stumbled. Sand turned and brought the slim black barrel of the crab gun up. He was there, just stepped from behind a house; mostly black, horns arcing up on either side of his massive head, black beard falling stiffly to mid-chest. He held his long, blade-like whip in one hand and a wasp in the other.
Sand fired instantly; she had used the crab-gun often when she was in school, hunting the pan-sized crabs that clustered on the offshore ridges. The trick was to run up on them quickly in a power boat, shoot one before they could scuttle into the water or beneath rocks, and then hope you could brake before hulling your boat on the black granite teeth that comprised the islands. A sport for the young and stupid, of little use in procuring food. And the guns themselves were illegal in the pueblos.
The gun recoiled in her hand, but the tracer from the dart and it’s micro-fine trailing wire formed a bright line that ended in the Whipper’s left shoulder. He was already turning with the impact when the charge caught up with him, the gun’s small battery discharging all at once. Sand heard the ogre croak, but she was already running again, dropping the gun and exchanging it for a grip on Tuchvala’s arm. The strange woman jerked her along for a few paces, until she got her own stride.
They jumped from a rooftop, and Sand’s knees failed to take all of the impact of the three-meter leap; she felt her backbone jar sickeningly and her stomach suck in. Tuchvala actually seemed to have landed with somewhat more grace, surprisingly. They began running again, but Sand wobbled, trying to recover her wind. They had only a short distance to go, however, because Sand’s goal—the Dragonfly—was only a few meters off.
They reached the craft, and Sand had the windshield up in seconds. Tuchvala was just getting in when the Whipper re-appeared. When he saw what they were doing, he holstered the police pistol and pulled at something dark and vaguely sword-shaped in his sash.
Sand leapt in, not bothering with the windshield, certainly not flipping on the block warmer. It was live or die, and she did not intend to die.
The underjets cut on with a horrible belch, like a monster’s fart, and for a horrible instant, the flame they sat upon coughed and stalled. Sand thought she saw a flash of green flicker wide of her face by a few meters; then the jets lit full on and acceleration crushed the blood from her face as the Dragonfly leapt straight up, eager to embrace the sky.
Chapter Ten
Hoku felt the drumming of the engine in the Bluehawk’s belly. Below him, the edge of the escarpment slid down, and, as if it were a child kicking up waves in a pool, gave way to the black, folded creases of hills. Ten kilometers of washboard hurled by effortlessly beneath, and then the earth plunged again, as the broad floodplain of the Palulukang Delta flattened out before them. Hoku reveled at what he saw there; the dense, motley green. Stands of juniper, willow, cottonwood, Russian olive, and tamarisk were viridian cotton-puffs. Dark emerald strands fanned out like a lover’s hair on an earthen pillow, streams and backswamps choked with cattail, horsetail, marsh grass. The long strips of levees—natural and artificial—were checkered with more clearly human product: cornfields, hectares of soybean, millet, and cotton. Here, closer to the river, a system of rice paddies. Above that, Hoku made out a silver dart, a minnow in a sea of air. It was a Dragonfly, trailing a yellow cloud of nutrient-fixing bacteria. Though the soil of the lowlands was rich, now, it still kept many of its elements locked up in igneous compounds.
Hoku frowned at the Dragonfly. Not the one they were searching for, surely. No, that one would be crouched on the edge of some mesa, thinking itself safe. Wrongly so. Hoku had influence everywhere, and he expected word on the alien—and her … ally? Abductor?
Hoku heard the sigh from behind him. It was Kewa. She had been huddled in on herself, wild eyed, when he last spared her a glance. Hoku did not fear her at his back; Homikniwa sat near, and while Homikniwa lived, nothing and no one could harm Hoku.
“Mother-Father …,” Kewa began.
“Yes?” The time for remonstration was over. Hoku had a keen sense of proportion.
“Mother-Father, I apologize for my remarks earlier. I understand the danger of slipping into superstition. It is all too easy for us.”
“True. Our ancestors were benign, but foolish. I’ve given up despising them. But this trap they built for us—this silly, made-up religion—this has held us back for too long. Nothing more important than this alien has happened since we emerged into the Fifth World. We have a moment, Kewa, just a fraction of an instant, to act. To do the right thing. If we don’t, we may lose the people to ignorance. We will lose all of this.” He swept his arm across the windscreen, at the green vista flowing by beneath them. They were passing over the coffee-colored Palulukang River even as he spoke. Boats, like brightly colored toys, plowed tiny “v’s” on its sluggish surface.
“I don’t understand.”
“Kewa,” Hoku said, in a somber, conspiratorial tone, “this is our only opportunity to defeat the Reed. Unless we have the power of those starships, the Reed will push our children into the wastelands so that wealthy Fourth-Worlders can squat on our gardens. We will all live like the traditionals, whether we like it or not.”
“I can see that, Mother-Father, but I don’t see what you can do about it, or what good the aliens can do us. We in the Tech Society have never communicated with them, have no idea what they want. Do you know something we don’t, to consider making a bargain with them?”
“I do not. But look, they have fashioned an envoy in our own image. They must want to talk to us, to strike some sort of deal. If that is the case—and I believe that it is—then the deal must be made with us, not with superstitious traditionals that might act from fear and ignorance.”
“What deal can the aliens strike?” asked Kewa, unwilling to relinquish her initial doubt. “They cannot live on this world, not since we have altered it. They must be angry about that, as angry as we would be if those squatters you speak of were to come and take what we labored to create.”
“Who says what they can and cannot
do?” Hoku replied, reasonably. “If they can take human form, they may very well be able to live here. That we could deal with, if they agreed to settle farther along the coast, or better, on the far side of the globe. We could help them. They, in turn, could help us, when the Reed starships come to steal our inheritance.”
Kewa didn’t look convinced, but said nothing. Hoku gave her his confident smile, but he wished he had some clear, compelling plan to share with the young biologist; perhaps then he himself would not have doubts. But what really mattered was that there was an opportunity, and that they grasp for it.
A dry chuckle from Kewa. The delta was lifting up below them, as they turned west, toward the settlement of Salt.
“Mother-Father,” she said. “As much as I regret my outburst, I still wish you had been content to reprimand me with strong words.”
Hoku nodded at that. “Without the religion—without the fear of the Whipper Kachina—still we have to have discipline. I’m sorry I hurt you, too. But I thought it had to be done. Prove yourself to me, Kewa, and you will be rewarded sufficiently to offset the pain you experienced.”
He left the implied threat where it was, in the unspoken realm. As he was lavish with rewards, so too could he return to the role of the Whipper, if need be. Kewa might resent him; that was okay, so long as her resentment proved to be a motivation and not a hindrance. Hoku could feel Homikniwa’s eyes on his back; the little puebloan knew what Kewa did not; that Hoku had acted from blind rage and fear, that the whip he laid on Kewa was a whip he laid on himself. Everyone believed in the Creator and the Kachina, deep down, even Hoku. He could only hope that his misstep with Kewa was not a crippling one. He needed her. For that reason he let her into his confidence, voiced his fears about the Reed. His worries were scarcely secret; many knew at least this much about Hoku’s beliefs, his conviction that the Vilmir Foundation would one day take their land. But he was rarely candid with underlings, and he hoped she would take their conversation to heart.
The flat screen pinged for attention, and Hoku gave the voice command for contact. A familiar image flickered on it.
“Mother-Father,” the image sighed. “The Whipper has been sent. I know where the alien is.”
“Voice only,” Hoku commanded, and the face was replaced with swirling geometric designs. “Good,” continued. “Let me know when she is in custody.”
“I will.”
The contact broke. The Bluehawk bucked across some thermals, as one of Hoku’s fears subsided. The city of Salt came in sight, and he banked to circle it once before landing. His city. His planet.
That was when the screen demanded him again. This time it was his staff foreman, Hova, with a fearful, anxious expression unconcealed.
“Mother-Father. I …”
The man stumbled on his own tongue, seemed to be gathering for another try.
“Go on,” Hoku chided gently.
“Mother-Father, there is a Reed starship hiding behind the Moon. They just sent down a landing drum.”
Hoku let that sink in, his face stone. His plans seemed to be coming apart like wet tissue, each new event more catastrophic than the last.
“A starship,” he commented, at last, very carefully. It would not do to scream at his foreman.
“Yes, Mother-Father.”
“It was not detected approaching?”
“Mother-Father, we still don’t see it, but the landing drum is already in the upper atmosphere, so we know the starship is there.”
Hoku rolled the Bluehawk out if its holding pattern. The concrete platforms of the landing stages rushed up at them.
“Assemble the warriors. Now. Fuel all the missiles.
“Already begun, Mother-Father.”
Hoku nodded brusquely and severed contact, wondering how many people would have to die before this was over.
Alvar Washington gazed dumbly at his second alien world and wiped the speckled remnants of his lunch from his chin with the back of his hand. The deck of the landing drum heaved dizzily beneath his feet, and the grey horizon of the sea beckoned him to enrich it with more of his bodily fluids. He resisted, though his legs wobbled like jelly and his stomach complained bitterly.
“I’ve always hated the goddamn ocean,” he muttered, half to himself and half to Teng. She answered him with a disdainful glance and then turned her regard off towards the thin black line she claimed was distant land. Alvar doubted it was, as he had begun to doubt everything Teng said. Indeed, he had begun to think that the concept of honest, solid land was itself a lie, something he remembered from conditioning rather than as a part of his own past. The sea, though—the sea that lurched the landing drum beneath him and stank of salt and rot—that was real enough, and as far as he was concerned, identical to any of the miserable seas of earth.
“Now what?” he asked, gripping the rail ringing the upper, flat end of what was essentially a truncated cone. He watched queasily as Teng effortlessly paced the full ten meter diameter of it.
“Now we wait a little bit, make sure the reconnaissance craft are fueled and working. Wait for our agent to give us a call.”
“What if he doesn’t? What if they caught him?”
“They haven’t discovered our agent in over twenty years,” Teng replied.
“That’s because he—or she—” he added, because Teng would give him no information about the agent, and he wanted her to know that pissed him off—“was probably doing nothing suspicious. That’s likely changed in the past few days.” He frowned, struck by a thought. “How long is a day here, anyway?”
Teng smiled. “This planet was supposed to be your area of expertise.”
Alvar nodded glumly. “I admit it. I’ve been so concerned with language and customs, I never even thought about things like day length. Stupid of me. But then, I’m not perfect.”
“Neither am I, love,” Teng said, gently. “And I like you the way you are.”
“Stupid.”
“If you say so. And the day here is very close to Earth normal—about twenty-one hours. Very little axial tilt, too, so it won’t vary much.”
“I knew that at least,” Alvar said, fighting down another bout of nausea. “No seasons.”
“Good for you.”
Alvar closed his eyes and wondered why his drunk doctors weren’t helping at all. Alcohol affected the inner ear, and so did the goddamn ocean. Maybe there was something else he could take for this. He would ask the computer if he ever made it below again. Better yet, he could steal one of the flyers and go to dry land. He opened his eyes once more, deciding that darkness was no help at all.
A peacekeeper stuck his head up through the open hatchway. What was his name? Achmed?
“Teng-Shu. You have a message on the mat. Came in just now.”
Teng grinned.
“Cheer up, Alvar. We may be headed for the coast sooner than I thought.”
Not soon enough, Alvar thought, staring at the broken mirror of the water and the distorted pieces of him it revealed.
Chapter Eleven
Sand had never dreamed that even the Whipper would have a sunbow, but the third flicker of green scored across her newly-expanded wing and cut it. Sand hadn’t bothered to flip the gyros on, so she yanked the stick down, watched the canyons yaw up at her, as she retracted the wings. Once more green lance scythed by, and then they were below the mesa edge, beyond the Kachina’s vision. Sand fought the stick and her own sudden vertigo. For a long moment the Dragonfly did not respond, but then Tawa, Father Sun, stood framed in her windshield, pursing to kiss the horizon. Sand put the wings back out and bore hard west, towards Red Corn Mountain and the Hoed-Up-Place. The Dragonfly had done well, but she saved her self-congratulations.
Sand peeked out around the edges of the imaginary Dragonfly mask that cloaked her, now that the immediate danger was behind them. The first thing she noticed wa
s a sour, fermented sort of smell, spattered pink dots on the inside of the windshield, and a sticky dampness on the back of her neck. A glance in her mirror showed her the source, quieted a possible panic. The pink wasn’t blood: it was whatever Tuchvala had last eaten. The woman-thing was wiping it from her mouth, staring miserably down at globs of it on her ugly blue imitation of a dress.
“Was that normal?” Tuchvala croaked. “Am I hurt or dying?”
Sand hissed a dry little laugh. “Just sick. Aerial cartwheels do that to most people.”
“You didn’t get sick.”
“I’m not most people.”
Tuchvala continued brushing ineffectually at the mess. “It’s ridiculous. I’ve whipped around stars at seven gravities. How can these minute velocities upset me so?”
“Tuchvala, I think you’re going to have to come to terms with something. You are not that ship, that computer in space. That may be what made you, what your mind was patterned on. But you are something different. Human beings have inner ears, and so do you. We weren’t designed very well for flying, and it shows.”
Tuchvala seemed to digest that a moment before answering.
“Do I seem human to you, then?”
“Human, yes. Normal, decidedly not. You can’t pass for a Hopi, if that’s what you want. But you can pass for human, because you are. Shit, I’m still not sure if I believe your story. You could still just as easily be from the Tech Society—or even from the Fourth World, for that matter.”
“And yet … I assume that person with the weapons was after me.”
“The Whipper? You bet. Dear old dad was trying to keep me distracted while the Whipper came to get you. Almost managed it, too.”
“Why didn’t you let it take me? Those are your people, aren’t they?”
“They are,” Sand replied, “and that first is a good question. I’m not sure I know the answer. But something seems terribly wrong, Tuchvala. If the council wanted to see you, they would have just called me, I think, or sent some old men. But they couldn’t even know about you, could they? Had you—the other you in space, I mean—spoken with them?”