Portal Jumpers

by Chloe Garner

  “Jesse,” she called.

  “Too much easy meat,” Jesse answered. “That’s a defensive formation.”

  Another great fish landed on the raft and Cassie went to go get it. It had landed on one of the infants, and it was whistling a pitch that clearly indicated pain.

  “Jesse,” she called again.

  “How bad?” he asked, not leaving his seat.

  “I don’t know.”

  She heard him sigh.

  “We knew there would be injuries. Do what you can.”

  Cassie held her hands open on either side of the Adena Lampak child as it rolled back and forth on the deck, ripples running down its fins.

  “Someone’s injured?” a voice called. Cassie looked over at a strange Adena Lampak at the edge of the raft. She carefully scooped up the infant and carried him over. The expression that greeted her was grim.

  “The caretakers need to see to him,” the Adena Lampak said.

  “Are you sure?” Cassie asked.

  “He will die, otherwise.”

  “It may help,” Jesse called. “It may focus the caretakers on something else.”

  The Adena Lampak nodded and put out his fins. Cassie slid the infant into the water and the Adena Lampak paused.

  “You’re doing well,” he said. “We haven’t been able to control them since they were hatched.”

  “I’m trying,” Cassie answered. “Wish I could be fighting with you.”

  “We’re managing,” the Adena Lampak answered, then disappeared.

  Cassie turned and dashed across the raft.

  There was a gap for a few minutes where, as far as Cassie could tell, no more engagements happened. The infants were finally tiring from being in air and settling down, and Cassie took a minute to sit with Pane’s daughter. The creature made a couple of chirruping noises at her and Cassie smiled.

  “You’re going to have to learn to do better than that,” she said. “If I go get you some water, do you promise to behave?”

  There was a settling motion that Cassie pretended was agreement. She went to the edge of the raft and paused, peering into the water as far as she could, then dipped the infant and pulled her back out. She squealed and rolled, but this wasn’t the same malicious movement as before. This was a child playing in a tub. Cassie smiled and dipped her again, then retreated, going back to her seat.

  “It’s too soon to hope we’re clear, isn’t it?” she asked Jesse.

  “That’s just the very front edge,” Jesse said. “If what they tell me is right, we’ve skirted the point of the wave, but they’re going to keep catching up with us. We just can’t move fast enough.”

  “Is it the raft?” Cassie asked. He shook his head.

  “No, the raft casts a shadow that keeps the caretakers a little better together. They just can’t push them too fast without risking them scattering.”

  “It’s amazing they’re the same species,” Cassie said. Jesse looked over at her.

  “You spend too much time with soldiers,” he answered.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The fact that you and your friends wouldn’t run screaming from a man with a gun doesn’t mean that the vast majority of your species wouldn’t.”

  “You think it’s the same?” she asked.

  “I do,” he said, looking back out to sea.

  “I suppose the Palta are stoic in the face of danger,” she teased.

  “We’re certainly harder to kill because of it,” he answered. “But when the end comes and we know it…” he paused and Cassie frowned. She hadn’t meant to be insensitive. “Everything clings to its own life,” he said, voice distant. “What else does it have?”

  She looked down at the tiny Adena Lampak in her arms.

  “We’re going to make it just fine,” she said. “He’s just being morbid.”

  She heard Jesse snort a soft laugh, then the raft rocked. Cassie looked up to find a huge creature, like a sea lion extended to the mass of a walrus, waddling across the decking. It rutted through the infants in its way, going over some of them. Cassie dropped the infant in her lap behind her and found the knife at her hip.

  “Here,” she called, stalking to the edge of the raft, away from the greatest group of infants in the center. The creature turned its head. “I’m the threat up here,” Cassie said, crouching. “You deal with me, first.”

  In the water behind the creature, she could see Adena Lampak fighting another group of them, impossible to count without more focus, but she realized she was probably on her own. She felt the grip of the knife.

  “In air, I win,” she said. The creature waddled forward, an infant only just wriggling out of its way. It hissed at her and Cassie hissed back.

  “Careful, Cassie,” she heard Jesse murmur.

  “In air, I win,” she said again. The creature dipped its head to scoop up an infant, swallowing it whole, and Cassie charged. The great mass of body turned toward her, and she saw into the creature’s eyes for a moment, and mentally hesitated. There was intelligence there. A soulfulness that reminded her of one of the great apes. And then it crunched, and Cassie was fully committed. Her body had never paused.

  This was what she was trained for. Too old, too heavy, too slow, she was still one of the best. The beast’s face cracked open, revealing matching rows of teeth on its top and bottom jaw, and Cassie slid along the decking, stabbing the knife deep into the creature’s back.

  The knife was as useful as she’d expected, but she hadn’t counted on how thick the layer of fat would be under the heavy skin. If she’d let go, she would have lost the knife. She jerked it toward herself as she rolled away, slicing a clean gash into the creature’s side as it brought down that great maw with an indiscriminate intent of destruction. Cassie was out of the way, and she pushed several more of the tiny Adena Lampak out of the way as she regained her feet. She had the beast’s attention now.

  She feigned left, and its mass swayed left with a power that she knew better than to underestimate. She took a step back, taking quick stock of how much room she had to work with. It really wasn’t much. She wanted the creature as close to the corner of the raft as she could get him, and the Adena Lampak were smart enough to get out of the way, if she gave them time.

  The creature was swaying like an enraged walrus, its mouth open and its head tipped back, shuffling toward her. A spear of kinds came rocketing out of the water, plunging into the beast’s side with the sound of a suction cup being pulled off of glass, and Cassie took the window of momentary distraction to get in another attack. She was against the creature before it had time to react, her shoulder pushing its long neck back as she dragged the knife across the width of its chest. It caught once, something structural deep under the insulative fat, and she took note.

  She couldn’t match her enemy for more than a moment, for mass or strength, and it pushed her down and away, trying to get its mouth around to her. She was flexible enough to stay out of the way, and quick enough, but only just. She needed to get more space. It was like trying to hold off an avalanche. She fell and rolled, feeling the craft shudder as the beast’s mouth plunged to collide with the soft decking. For a moment, she worried about the structural integrity of the design, but she had no time to consider it, as the creature swept the deck. She only narrowly managed to keep her arms and legs out of that great mouth, and she’d lost track of the edge. Gratifyingly, the surface below her was beginning to slick with black-purple blood. She’d hit something. Or the spear had. Either way, it felt like winning.

  She stabbed at the beast’s throat, connecting once, and it jerked away, roaring. The sound was deep enough that she felt it through the raft itself. She grunted.

  “Cry baby.”

  She got her feet under her and saw the window, reflexively, before she had a chance to process it. She drove her body into the creature, tipping them both into the sea.

  She realized when she hit the water that that had been dumb.

  The water c
hurned with the pre-existing fight, and even if she had had good underwater vision, she would have had a hard time seeing through the frothy, purple water. Teeth grabbed her ankle and she stabbed, driving the blade into a jaw inches below her foot. She twisted the knife, and the teeth popped open. She pulled her foot clear, then went to swing again, but hit nothing but water. Something ran into her, spinning her underwater, and she lost track of which way the surface was.

  An Adena Lampak fin wound around her chest and pulled, and her head broke the surface.

  The water was still.

  “Ancient enemies,” the Adena Lampak said. “You did well. Do you need help?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head. Where had the raft gotten to?

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Am I?”

  “It smells strange.”

  Her ankle started to throb in the salt and she shrugged.

  “I’ve done worse. Can you swim me back to the raft?”

  “It’s here,” the Adena Lampak said. She turned her head and nearly bumped into it.

  “Oh.”

  She didn’t need it, but the Adena Lampak gave her a boost and she rolled onto the deck.

  “What were they?” Cassie asked, inspecting her ankle quickly. The teeth had mostly only formed punctures that would heal clean. There were a couple of drag marks that might leave scars, but nothing life threatening.

  “Argrav,” the Adena Lampak said from the water. “Can you help get the wounded up?”

  “Send them to the caretakers,” Jesse called, somewhere behind Cassie. The Adena Lampak nodded.

  “How bad?” Cassie asked. The Adena Lampak shook his head. “How bad is it up there?”

  There were four still bodies on the deck behind Cassie, and a handful of others that hadn’t quite gotten out of the way. She turned to face the Adena Lampak in the water.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We knew,” he answered. “Bring me the injured infants. The caretakers may be able to save them.”

  She nodded and quickly ferried the babies to the Adena Lampak. More of the warriors had gathered at the edge of the craft, taking them from her and disappearing with them.

  “It could have been worse,” the Adena Lampak said. “We’re fighting for something important. This is the cost.”

  Cassie gave him a sympathetic look, then returned her attention to the deck. The tiny bodies would have to be taken care of. She desperately wanted to avoid them, but it wasn’t acceptable. She carefully laid them out on the far edge of the raft from Pane’s daughter, taking a moment to stand over them quietly before returning to the infants.

  “You took a big risk,” Jesse said.

  “I had to,” she answered. He nodded.

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have.”

  She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. She still had work to do.

  She tired of watching the waves of sleek water-borne predators roll in. She kept the babies wet and kept them on the raft, and that was about the scope of her attention. She was aware of Jesse giving direction from the corner of the raft, and occasionally of Adena Lampak returning an escaped infant or bringing her a new one. The new ones were still feisty; the ones that had been out from the beginning were tired and some of them seemed to recognize her. She splashed water on the deck to try to wash the blood off, but didn’t have the right tools to move enough water across the purple stain. The sandy concrete had mostly absorbed it, anyway.

  The waves weren’t quite as high as they had been, leaving from the Southerner’s tower, but the ever-changing angle of the deck didn’t help anything.

  It had been maybe an hour since the last major engagement when Pane stuck her head out of the water.

  “Give him to me,” he said.

  “What?” Cassie asked.

  “My child.”

  Cassie went to pick up the baby, who hummed at her as she walked across the raft and handed her down to Pane. The warrior disappeared back under the water without any more explanation, and Cassie went back to dipping one after another of the infants in the water. The sun was beginning to set, still a long way from the horizon, but with the longer light, the infants didn’t dry out quite as quickly.

  Jesse looked drained, but he was still alert. Far out on the horizon behind them, a school of fish started jumping.

  The infants mewled and hummed and clicked, seeming to enjoy the lower intensity of the light and the exposure to air, and Cassie wondered if they were all truly lost - what would happen if they went ahead and tried to make them air-tolerant. As she picked up the next infant, though, it coughed blood on her and her heart sunk. They really didn’t have the internal organs for extended periods on hard surfaces, and a few of them had started showing the stress. She splashed the water next to the raft and waited for an Adena Lampak to surface. She handed the infant off wordlessly. There was nothing she could do. She still had work to do.

  The raft was falling apart in places, seeping air bubbles through the sand, and she avoided those spots as she could, doing what she could to keep the babies wet and comfortable.

  Someone behind her clicked and she turned to find Pane at the surface again with the little Adena Lampak in her arms.

  “It’s done,” Pane said. Cassie sat down on the side of the raft, feeling uneasy for reasons she couldn’t quite explain.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. Pane was still staring at the child.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Pane?”

  The Adena Lampak finally looked up at her.

  “The argrav,” Pane said. “They have always hunted Adena Lampak. Even since we’ve been building towers. We drive them away, but they always return.”

  “Pane, what’s going on?”

  “Benth,” Pane finally said, handing the child up to Cassie. Cassie’s stomach sunk.

  “They…?”

  “He drifts with his ancestors,” Pane said. “His child has taken his name.” There was a very long pause as Pane looked at her daughter. “All is as it should be.”

  Cassie shook her head.

  “No it isn’t.”

  “Don’t mock him by taking away the valor of his death,” Pane said.

  “Being sad doesn’t take away from why he died,” Cassie said. “It just means you’re sad.”

  “Leave it, Cassie,” Jesse said. Pane turned her head, sensing something Cassie couldn’t see.

  “We should be almost out of the current,” the Adena Lampak said. “They’ve sounded the alarm again. May this be the last.”

  Cassie nodded, looking at the Adena Lampak infant in her arms. It was sad. It didn’t matter what Pane said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to the child as she returned to her seat. Cassie looked over at Jesse.

  “How bad is it?”

  “I think I see what they see,” he answered. “They’ve done a good job keeping the caretakers together. I think they’ll manage this one okay.”

  Cassie nodded and looked down at the child again. Around her, Adena Lampak infants squalored and played and plotted to make their escapes. Life went on. They had almost won.

  Well, until they got to Calenna, and then there would be new problems, but they hadn’t lost yet.

  “Did he mean what he said?” Cassie asked, then switched to English. “She’s naming her daughter after her husband?”

  Jesse chortled.

  “You think they have gender-specific names here? It’s traditional for an unnamed child to take a deceased parent’s name. That’s Benth, you’ve got there.”

  “That’s a head trip,” Cassie said. “What a burden to lay on a kid.”

  “It’s an honor,” Jesse said. He sat up. “There are more of them than I thought.”

  Cassie sighed and laid Benth down, glancing once at the horizon in the direction Jesse was watching, then went after the next group of infants making a break for the water.

  The raft finally fell apart as the ocean grew shallow and the clu
ster of caretakers spread below it in an almost magical invocation of mermaids. In the orange and pink light, their blue-gray skin, skimming just below the surface of the easy waves, was sleek and more muscular than Cassie had given them credit for, seeing them in the core of the tower at Calenna. She’d grown so used to thinking of them as cow-like and dull that watching them play, actually being able to see them move, especially those who cared for infants, she was stunned at the wit and precision of their motion. The warriors ranged far afield, making sure that no unexpected predators scattered the school, but they were inside of Calenna’s territorial waters and for just a moment, they were celebrating.

  There had been casualties. Cassie knew they weren’t telling them everything out of a sense of privacy and a lingering suspicion of Jesse, despite everything, but the infants laid out on the deck weren’t the only ones that hadn’t made it, nor had Benth been the only warrior who had sacrificed himself along the way. Cassie didn’t ask. This was soldiers’ work, and they went about it with the same pride she would have had.

  Up until now, the pace had been easy, because they had had to tow the raft, but Cassie understood the last portion of the swim would be punishing, trying to get everyone in safe before anything else went wrong.

  Before they failed to prevent the war.

  Cassie sat on the edge of the faltering raft, the sand behind her bubbling and in some places puddling as it sunk. All of the infants were back in the water save Benth, who cuddled comfortably against Cassie’s chest. Pane surfaced nearby.

  “Are you ready?”

  Cassie handed Benth down and looked out at the horizon.

  “Are we in time?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Pane asked. “We’re either in time, or much too late. This is the only way to know.”

  Cassie nodded.

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “You’ve got to be tired, and you have Benth and your caretaker, now…”

  “Don’t insult me, Cassie,” Pane said. Cassie nodded. She’d needed to offer it.

  Benth swam circles around her ankles then darted away. The warriors were organizing the last rush, and for a moment there was chaos as the caretakers and infants swarmed the raft.