“Hanashite!” Daisuke shouted.
“Shit,” said Misha. “Shit! Daisuke, get that thing off her.”
Daisuke pummeled the cavalier’s head and sides, which did as much good as the animal’s scratching on the door with its legs. Humans weren’t built to punch through cavalier armor with their fists, the same way cavaliers weren’t built to ride ATVs.
Hm.
“Daisuke,” Anne said, “stop hitting it. I have an idea.”
She leaned to the left, pulling the cavalier farther into the vehicle with her. A cloud of rotten citrus smell engulfed her as jointless legs scrabbled over the side of the door. She could see how they were curved to fit around the body of a mount. There would be a strong instinct there to grasp whatever fit.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Misha said. Her head was nearly in his armpit. Daisuke grunted with the strain of keeping hold of the captive cavalier’s mandibles.
“Just keep driving.”
Ignoring the cursing from the men and the pain in her shoulders, Anne twisted farther. She was hunching over in her seat now, with her head pressed up against Misha’s ribs and the head of the worm upside down in Daisuke’s grip behind her. The segmented body fell against her, and its limbs closed like the rings of a binder around her waist.
The cavalier gave a low whistle and stopped struggling. It breathed slowly, in great deep drafts like a human fighting panic. It humped its way up Anne’s back, settling in. The lime smell grew weaker.
“Anne!” Daisuke called, still gripping the worm’s head. Anne was bent double with her elbows on her knees. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said. “Just…being ridden.”
“You jealous?” asked Misha. “Ha ha— Ow!” He swore in Russian and the car swerved under them. “I thought your pet cavalier would tell the others we’re friends now. Ubezhat’ ublyudki takiye!”
Another swerve.
“Forward,” Anne ordered. “This vehicle is faster than their mounts, and their jaws aren’t designed to grab people out of ATVs anyway.”
“Eto khorosho.”
“They’re still following us,” said Daisuke. “I count fourteen.”
“Yes. The whole cavalry is chasing us.” Misha sounded back in control. “Now, my friends, you see what’s so great about my incomplete bachelor’s degree in history.”
Daisuke patted Anne’s shoulder. “Anne, are you sure you’re all right? Is the worm hurting you?”
“It’s calmer than you,” Anne pointed out. “I’m fine. The riding legs don’t squeeze very tight. I am getting a pain in my back, though, and I wish I could see what’s going on. Will you take pictures of this thing up close for me?” She was trying to picture the cavalier’s body in her mind. “I’m thinking about something like a row of clams all strung together. Or a pelagic polychaete turned on its side, one set of setae functioning as legs and the other as dorsal spines?”
“Shut up!” Misha said. “You get to lecture all the time. Now it’s my turn. You bond with your new pet and listen, because this is a Mongol tactic, what I’m doing now. You ride up to the castle. You pretend to attack, and all the knights inside come rushing out. You turn and gallop away. Angry knights chase you.”
“Should I keep holding this worm’s jaws?” Daisuke asked.
“Quiet. Now, Mongol riders are faster than armored knights. Mongols ride knights to exhaustion, turn around, run past knights and plunder the castle, which has no defenses.” Misha whistled to himself. “It’s good to finally put my liberal arts education to use.”
The cavalier jerked on Anne’s back and she heard its jaws snap shut. “What was that?” she asked.
“It’s okay,” Daisuke said. “I held my jacket up and the cavalier grabbed it. Now I will tie its mandibles closed.”
“You weren’t listening,” Misha complained. “Anne, the next time you tell us about alien creatures, I’ll make rude jokes the whole time.”
“So, no change then?”
The ATV raced across the ammonite-grass, trailing monsters behind it. Despite the thudding hoof-pegs and snapping mandibles, Anne felt her mouth stretching in a smile.
The wind buffeted in her face, and the worm held her tight, smelling of chalk dust and low tide. The tires bumped and his curved limbs clutched tighter around her ribs and shoulders.
Misha whooped. “Eat dust, aliens!”
“Turn now,” shouted Daisuke. “We have to get Moon!”
Cackling madly, Misha spun the wheel and they all slewed sideways.
Anne laughed as the worm whistled in distress. “Just hold on, mate,” she told him. “Hold on!”
The hills and their castles slid past each other as her perspective changed.
“I think I’ll call you Lancelot,” she told the worm.
The ring of henge-trees, when they reached it, turned out to be less castle than corral. Mount-worms undulated gently across nautilus-grass cropped so short it was little more than green spirals scribbled on red clay.
The same ocher material seemed to cover the trunks, but when Anne looked closely at the henge-trees, she could see that they were constructed from the same clay as the ground. Rain had carved runnels between the swirls of the growth that covered and sealed it. There were smooth places where a tool like a builder’s putty knife had spread more clay to repair old damage.
Anne thought of mandibles, but the cavaliers’ mouth parts were all about hooking and slicing. Their mounts had sickle-shaped instruments for cutting grass. What sort of creature had built-in spatulas? A tree-top browser? A beaver- or termite-like creature that made its own raised gardens?
“So what are you?” Anne wondered out loud, twisting her head to look up at Lancelot. “A knight? A squatter? A landlord? Curiouser and curiouser.”
A tug on her arm. Anne looked around, annoyed. “Hold on, Daisuke. I’d best find a new mount for Lancelot.” She looked around. “Or are the other cavaliers coming back?” Guiltily, as she remembered what they were supposed to be doing here, she asked, “Did we find Moon?”
To his credit, Daisuke didn’t sigh or say ‘Focus on the real world,’ or anything. He just jerked his head to where Misha was arguing with, yes, Moon. Anne realized they’d been doing so for some time, and she’d just tuned out the noise.
Her working hypothesis had been a wasp-type situation and she’d been ready to find Moon head-down in a giant larva. Instead, their physicist-in-distress had been locked away in a tower.
Chapter Ten
Strange Mutualisms
The tower was a short one, slightly tapering toward the three-meter top. Henge-trees had been planted – built? – in a small circle, then pushed inward so they rested against each other. Their upper edges had all been fused together, but triangular gaps opened toward the ground. It was through one of these gaps that Moon was shouting.
“I don’t care! Just get me out of here!”
Lancelot hissed as Anne ignored his commands. Rather than grazing contentedly, she stomped over to Moon. “You bloody stupid, arrogant dipshit. You hurt?”
“Not enough to teach him a lesson, clearly,” said Misha.
Moon’s face was a pale, blank oval in the shadows of the tower. “Help me.”
Anne knelt down next to his triangular window. Lancelot rocked and hissed on her back, like an anxious pressure cooker. “What were you doing out here?” Anne demanded.
“Experiments, he says,” Misha said.
“We don’t have time for each of you to individually interrogate me,” Moon said. “You can hear my discoveries when I tell Farhad.”
Misha growled something about snotty little twerps, but Anne knew there was only one way forward. “Are you hurt?”
“Nothing serious,” said Moon. “Now stop wasting time. Please.”
“Please? Your pride must really be wounded,” Mis
ha said.
“How are we going to get him out?” Anne wondered.
“Quickly,” Daisuke added.
Something whistled. Not Lancelot.
Anne felt her cavalier’s weight shift as he twisted his neck around, looking beyond the henge.
Daisuke gave the tower a shove. The grassy clay failed to topple. “We need rope,” he said. “Wait. No, we don’t.” He backed up, flexing his arms and legs, preparing to jump. Of course that was exactly what he was going to do.
“Wait a second,” said Anne. They needed more information. She raised her voice. “Moon, what’s in that tower with you?”
“Monsters!” Moon shouted. He had wedged his shoulders through the triangular window, but it was much too small for him.
“That’s not very illuminating. Let me see.” Anne pushed Moon backward and stuck her head in with him.
There were mount-animals in here with Moon, which would suggest the tower was a corral or barn and not a larder. Except…Anne blinked and squinted, letting her eyes adjust. Moon was shouting at her, which was distracting, but yes, there were things riding the mounts. Not cavaliers though. These riders were only the length of Anne’s arm, and had the same platelike flattened heads as their mounts. Except these…jockeys had tiny, useless-looking mandibles and enormous eye-clusters. She was reminded of the drones of honeybees.
Moon stood and hissed in frustration, and something whistled in the darkness. Another mount, this one riderless. It hooted again and inserted itself into the space between Moon and the jockey. Its neck bent backward until it was resting its head on its spine. Its throat lay bared at Moon, breathing holes gasping.
Anne grinned. “Now, that is never a threat response.” For all Anne knew, those breathing holes were getting ready to spray her with acid snot or something. But, looking at Moon, she didn’t think so. The mount was quivering just like the man. They were scared, but brave. Protecting what they loved?
“He’s right, Anne.” That was Misha’s voice. “You can’t fit through.”
“I’m not trying to fit through,” said Anne. “I’m trying to figure out what we’re looking at.”
“Everybody?” Daisuke’ said. “We should hurry!”
“We could just leave him,” said Misha.
Anne slid her head back out of the window and rose carefully to her feet. Lancelot released a smell like old fish, which she assumed was a sign of happiness.
“Okay, I think I know what we’re jumping into, and that we can jump back out.”
The breeze shifted, and a scorched citrus smell washed past Anne’s nose. Lancelot whistled and more cavaliers answered from every direction.
Daisuke’s expression turned fearful. “Misha, protect Anne.”
He took three steps back, then leaped forward.
His boots hit the sloping sides of the tower and propelled him upward with a grunt and a shower of fish-smelling plant material. Another body-length upward, and Daisuke’s feet slipped, but he flung his hands up and hooked his fingers over the edge of the hole at the top of the tower.
Clay sagged under him.
“What are you doing?” Moon demanded as Daisuke hauled himself up on bulging arm muscles.
“Hup!” he said, and vanished headfirst into the tower.
Only then did Anne remember her theories about wasp larvae. “Dice! Are you okay?”
“Okay,” Daisuke answered. “Moon, please let me lift you up.”
“What?” said Moon. “Oh, a boost.” In a moment, his hands appeared over the wall of the tower. With an unathletic grunt, the physicist pulled and was pushed out.
“Okay,” Daisuke said again. “Now turn around and give me your hand.”
Moon frowned. “Oh, so you can climb out.” He looked around, squinting.
The shithead was considering letting Daisuke rot in there.
“Hey!” Anne shouted. “Don’t be a shithead.”
Moon shot her a look of contempt. “You have no idea—”
The cavaliers attacked.
They came from all directions, whistling and thrashing atop their mounts. Four of them attacked the ATV and the rest went after Misha.
“Anne!” Daisuke screamed. Anne turned to him, and so didn’t see Misha thump up behind her like a rugby forward and scoop both her and Lancelot into his arms.
Three huge steps and Misha threw Anne up the slope of the tower, then pounded up after her. Lancelot squealed as Anne flung out her arms and legs, grabbing at the shaggy ammonite-grass. She slid, nearly overbalanced, but Lancelot swung his head in the other direction, and halted their motion. Of course he would be good at that sort of thing.
Anne looked up. She, Misha, and Moon clung to the upper slope of the tower, just above the snapping jaws of the pack of cavaliers that surrounded them.
“What’s going on?” Daisuke called from inside the tower. “Are you safe now?”
“No, you idiot,” said Moon, and the tower collapsed under their weight.
***
Daisuke felt a little silly for how loud he screamed.
In fairness, it was Anne’s name on his lips when the ceiling fell.
He realized that actually he was the person in most danger here and jumped back from the wedge of clay that came smashing down in front of him. Sunlight flooded the tower, and an animal squealed in pain.
The squeals were echoed outside. Over the edge of the now much shorter tower, the necks of three enraged cavaliers whipped. The humans had destroyed their animal pen and crushed one of their sheep.
Or perhaps, thought Daisuke, as creatures slithered and undulated past him and into freedom, we’ve started a prison break.
He shook his head, loosing a cloud of brick-colored dust and dry grass. Focus. Protect Anne. Get out of here. He stepped onto the broken wall, which sagged perceptibly under his weight. This was far too much like the aftermath of an earthquake, but at least Daisuke had some training for this.
“Anne!” he called. “Can you move? Can you come to me?”
Misha and Moon obeyed, but the real object of Daisuke’s worry stayed where she was, curled into a ball with that horrible centipede creature warbling on her back.
Lancelot waggled from side to side, trying to gape his muzzled mandibles, the breathing holes on his fat lower body wheezing like a phlegmy accordion.
“Anne! Are you hurt?”
“Mmph!” came the reply, smothered in grass and clay rubble. “Trumphing sumphing.”
“What?”
“She’s trying something,” Misha said, clambering down to join Daisuke and the jail’s remaining creatures. “Some animal behavior magic, I hope? Work fast, Dr. Dolittle!”
Even as Misha spoke, the other cavaliers approached. Their mounts didn’t appear to like stepping up onto the broken roof, but one creature managed to bully its way up. The mount squeaked as its rider squeezed it with riblike legs, but it found its footing on the crumbled clay. The rider swung its mandibles toward Anne.
Who stood.
***
Anne stood astride the fallen tower and looked down at the cavaliers.
They watched her back. Heads cocked and swayed, running her image across one eye-cluster then the other. Inner mandibles clattered together as outer mandibles gaped. Spikes twitched down spine and throat. Breathing holes contracted with indrawn breaths. Bowed limbs squeezed around lithe, segmented bodies.
Whistling, they came.
Clods of clay flew from stilt-tipped feet as the mounts rippled up the ramp of the collapsed tower wall. Plate-heads and axe-heads bobbed in unison, segments expanded and contracted in identical sequence, as if rider and mount shared the same blood and brain.
They really are like one animal.
For a moment, Anne’s heart soared. Not only because the cavaliers were beautiful, but because she understood the
m.
She pictured a field of clay, looped about with noodly ammonite-grass. Sickle-jawed grazers picked their way over the ground cover, slicing it and packing it into their mouths. Too many grazers and the grass would get eaten up, but things would never get to that point because axe-headed predators waited in ambush behind trees, ready to decrease the grazer population.
Except. Where did the trees come from? The trees didn’t grow; they were built by something with mandibles shaped like a bricklayer’s trowel. The builders stacked clay into slabs so tall that the grazers couldn’t eat the plants on top of them. A standing stone, facing south, presenting its broad face to the sun. A garden for the builders, out of anyone else’s reach. Anne imagined a giraffe with eye-clusters and peg-legs.
Now, if predators ate too many grazers, there would be no need for builders to build the henge-trees that the predators needed to hide behind. If the cavaliers ate builders, on the other hand, they would free up space for grazers. The result that emerged from the needs of these three species would be a sort of savannah, with henges scattered across grass.
So far, so Earthlike, but population dynamics didn’t explain the fences, hunting blinds, and prison towers. Why would builders shift their behavior to benefit the cavaliers? Why would mounts allow cavaliers to ride them? There were some weird mutualisms going on around here. There had to be a balance, and a way to negotiate it.
Anne remembered the way the mount in the tower had stood between her and the jockey, baring its throat, offering itself up. For sacrifice?
Big grazers carry little grazers on their backs. Big grazers sacrifice themselves for little grazers. Now, put the predators literally on top of that. The predators – cavaliers – ride the grazers, their mounts. Not on the hunt, because mounts willingly let themselves be slaughtered, but to defend their territory from other cavaliers!
The wind picked up, smelling of limes and snow. It blew Anne’s hair out as she stood taller.
This! This was what Anne was meant for. This was her job! You watch the aliens. You figure them out. You use what you know to save people. She wanted to spread her arms out and shriek. HA!
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