But no! That would be a human threat display, and Anne wasn’t playing the human now. Nor was she playing the cavalier. Lancelot was on her back and Anne was his mount.
So she reared, thrusting out her belly, inflating her lungs, hoisting Lancelot up on her shoulders. He waggled in protest, but Anne put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as hard as she could.
The attackers stopped.
Mounts pulled up, rearing, grasping at the sky with their cages of legs.
They rocked back to the ground, shivering, snorting foam from the spiracles running down throat and spine.
Cooling secretions, Anne’s brain supplied. Like sweat.
The cavalier’s head reared back, tracking not Anne’s face, but the face of her rider, Lancelot. Lancelot gave a sharp, up-down head bob and vocalized a single low toot.
One by one, the mounts arched their heads back, exposing their throats. Anne bent herself backward as well, as if doing the limbo.
She grinned, panting with adrenaline. Why couldn’t she make these sorts of deductions where people were concerned? Maybe she could.
The air was thick with the smell of butter and fish.
“So, Daisuke?” Anne called, still limbo-ing. “Are there other cavaliers in there in the pen with you?”
“Cavaliers?” said Daisuke.
“Pen?” said Misha.
“What’s going on?” Moon demanded.
“Yes. Walking alone, a human looks like prey. In the ATV, we looked like rivals. But if we have a rider….”
“I get it,” Daisuke answered, and switched to the aren’t-you-a-beauty tone he always used when talking to animals. “Ii ko. Ii ko da ne. Jōba shiyō ka? Jōba?”
Anne waited. The muscles in her back started to tremble.
Daisuke made the yo-issho noise, as if hoisting something heavy. A pant. A low whistle. “Okay. Okay. I have a rider.”
“The only rider.” That was Moon’s voice.
“What about us?” Moon asked.
“Misha, you should, uh, onbu! Kataguruma!” Daisuke flailed for English and Anne’s back burned. “Piggyback! You should piggyback!”
Inspiration hit Anne like lightning. “Misha and Moon!” she shouted. “Imitate a builder!”
Both men cursed. Oh, right, they didn’t know what a builder was.
“Stand as tall as you can!” Anne shouted. Pain sparked up and down her spine. “Reach up with your hands like you’re imitating a giraffe!”
She had to straighten. Groaning, Anne pulled her torso forward. Would she be sore tomorrow. But the cavaliers weren’t attacking. They bobbed their heads at her rider, and Daisuke’s.
It wasn’t exactly a cavalier or a jockey. Its neck was stubby and its body was bloated, more like a maggot than a centipede. Instead of the tortoiseshell plating of the other cavaliers, Daisuke’s rider was covered with thick, puffy pads, like the amusement park mascot version of a cavalier.
But when the mascot bobbed its head, the other cavaliers bobbed back. No abject submission, but not an attack either. Those mandibles were right at the level of Daisuke’s face.
“Bow, you asshole,” came Misha’s voice.
“I am bowing!” said Moon.
“Not with your head, bow with your arms. We’re imitating a giraffe, remember?”
Anne looked over her shoulder. Now her neck muscles hurt in addition to those in her back and belly, but she caught a glimpse of Moon riding Misha’s back. With one arm, the physicist hung on. The other was stretched up, imitating a giraffe, or maybe that was meant to be an ostrich?
“This is ridiculous and we’re all going to die,” Moon said.
“Walk forward, Misha,” Anne told him.
He did, and the cavaliers backed away.
“Lead the way, Misha,” she said.
“What are we going to do when we get to the ATV?” asked Moon.
“Uh, I haven’t thought that far,” Anne said. “We’ll just get in and see what happens.”
Not much happened, at least when Misha and Moon climbed into the vehicle. The cavaliers swept their heads back and forth, as if wondering where the builder had got to.
Misha closed his door. The click of its latch seemed very loud.
Mounts balked, but cavaliers reached their heads out and stroked the backs of the skittish beasts. Or was Anne just anthropomorphizing?
“There are cavaliers behind us too,” Daisuke whispered.
The heads swung back to Anne and Daisuke and the bobbing began again. The scent on the air shifted from fish to smoke and citrus.
“Don’t worry. Just one step at a time,” said Anne.
The nearest cavalier urged its mount forward. The big animal bowed its plate-shaped head in Anne’s – or more likely Lancelot’s – direction. The cavalier on its back bent in the opposite direction, baring its throat. Anne felt her own rider do the same.
“What’s happening?” Daisuke said.
“It’s okay,” Anne said. “Just more submission behav—”
The cavalier in front of her snapped its body forward like a catapult, chopping its head down onto the neck of its mount. With a polytonic squeal, the creature tumbled to the ground, spraying blue-green blood from the stump of its neck.
“Shit,” said Anne. “I didn’t expect that.”
And Lancelot’s head smashed into the back of her neck.
***
Daisuke’s heart nearly stopped.
He took a step forward, and the cavaliers around him stiffened and gaped. He didn’t care. He would tear them apart and let them tear him apart if—
Anne started swearing.
Her cavalier, Lancelot, let go of her back and humped awkwardly away. The creature whistled and wagged its head, which – thank goodness – still had Daisuke’s jacket wrapped around it.
Anne swore again. She had toppled forward, and her face was in the grass. This rendered most of her words inaudible, except for, “– your neck, Dice!”
Daisuke looked up to see the nearest cavalier bring its jaws down on the neck of its own mount. Aquamarine blood splattered him, and he felt his puffy rider shifting its own weight.
He brought his hands up and laced them behind his neck just in time to feel those mandibles tear across his skin.
“Now fall over like you’ve been decapitated!”
Daisuke did. With a sigh, the puffy rider on his back let go.
“Okay,” Anne said. “Now we slowly crawl to the ATV…hm.”
Daisuke leaned toward her, whispering. “What’s wrong? Is it safe?”
“Huh? Oh. I don’t know. I’m just wondering whether I can snag one of these dead mounts,” Anne said. “I’d love to get my hands on something I can dissect.”
Chapter Eleven
Moon’s Mission
“If only I could have got both species,” Anne said as the ATV sped out of the henge.
The mount’s head was in her lap, wrapped in Daisuke’s much-abused jacket. The body was in the back, draped over Daisuke and Moon, who was looking very sorry for himself.
“If we were going to share our ride with an alien, why not bring a live one?” Misha asked.
“Keep Lancelot as a pet, you mean? What would we feed it?”
“No, please,” Daisuke said.
Anne tapped her teeth, looking over her shoulder at the cavaliers that had gathered to watch them go. “And are the riders and mounts even different species? I’ve been assuming predator–prey population dynamics, but how would things look if they were different castes? Sexes? Something epigenetic? Hm.”
“I’m glad you’re not hurt, Moon,” said Daisuke.
“I’m….” Moon trailed off. Anne twisted around, trying to figure out what was going on with the physicist’s expression. Was that gratitude? Or just relief and exhaustion?
/> Moon hunched and looked away from her. “Thank you,” he said.
The alien centipede-knights had been much easier to domesticate, but maybe there was hope for Moon as well.
“You’re welcome,” said Anne. “Any time. Now, I want to know what you were doing out here, Moon.”
Daisuke said, “Anne….” as if she’d made a faux pas, but Misha grunted in agreement.
“Anne is right. We risked our lives for Moon. He risked our lives for what?” He glanced over his shoulder. “You tell me, Moon, or maybe you walk home, huh?”
Moon made one of his annoying tssh! sounds. “First, I didn’t risk your lives. You followed me. You were trying to interfere again.”
“Us meddling kids,” agreed Misha.
“Misha and Anne are only worried,” Daisuke said. “You might have died, Moon.”
Another tssh! followed by, “Yes. I know. But second, I don’t need to walk home. I need to recover my ATV and my materials.”
“What materials?” Anne asked. They’d reached the bottom of the hill and the other ATV was right there.
“Let me off here,” Moon said. “You can stop the—”
Misha braked hard and they all rocked forward. The big man didn’t give Moon time to settle in his seat before he turned around and grabbed him by the front of his jacket.
“What”, Misha growled, “materials?”
“Misha, please,” said Daisuke. “We’re friends here.” Did Daisuke really believe that?
Moon sure as hell didn’t. He looked down at the fist bunched in his shirt. Back up. “My bucket,” he said, expression set, “and my shovel.”
Misha didn’t let go. “What were you doing with a bucket and a shovel? I thought you’d be looking for the wormhole to the Cavalier planet. What did you need the tools for, Moon?”
“I didn’t do anything to the wormhole to the Cavalier planet.”
Anne didn’t know what to make of that, but Daisuke said, “I see. It wasn’t the Cavalier planet on the other end of the wormhole.”
Moon’s eyes widened. Daisuke was right! How did he do that?
Admiration kept Anne’s mouth closed, while Daisuke said, “Professor Moon, we deserve an explanation, don’t we?”
The physicist slumped. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me out of this vehicle unless I tell you.”
“We will let you out,” said Daisuke. “We will follow you to find your bucket. And I think you will feel better after you talk to us. You can’t talk to anyone, can you?”
“That’s not important.” But Moon went on. “The planet on the other side of the wormhole I went through wasn’t anything like the biome where I was ambushed and captured.”
“And rescued,” Misha grumbled. “You’re welcome.”
“Misha,” said Daisuke. And more gently, to Moon: “What was the planet like?”
“The planet on the other side was not the Cavalier planet,” Moon answered. “No grass, no worms riding worms. The ground was covered by dark purple spongy stuff, like a mattress.”
Anne’s fingertips tingled. “What does this mean? Either you’re just a dipshit who can’t tell one biome from another, or…” she twiddled her fingers, “…or there was some sort of terrible extinction event on the cavaliers’ home planet and their entire biosphere has been replaced. Or it really is a different planet that Moon saw and the cavaliers are invasive in this area of Junction.”
“So the cavaliers did to this biome what we’re doing to the Sweet Blood biome?” asked Misha. “Are you sure the cavaliers aren’t intelligent, Anne?”
“Yes! No, I have no idea!” Anne scratched at her hair. “Shit. We’ve got to do a better survey of the Cavalier biome, collect samples on both sides of the wormhole and compare them. And, maybe, we drive around the edges of the Cavalier biome and see how big it is.”
“Unless Moon is lying,” Misha said.
Would Moon make up a story like that? Could he? Anne turned to Moon. “Did you make any other observations our biologist might want to know about this sponge?”
Moon shrugged. “I think the spongy stuff was transparent, and the things living in it were purple. They wriggled away from me and the ground lost its color.”
“Yeah?” Anne reached her hands out to him. “Then what happened?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I turned around and came back.”
Anne’s fingers curved into claws. “For Christ’s sake, Moon.”
“I didn’t have time to take samples. As if you would thank me for taking any.”
“Wait,” said Daisuke. “Why did you have a bucket and shovel?”
“The shovel. I used it to demolish the wall around the portal.”
Anne started. “There was a wall around the portal?”
“Yes. Like the tower I was in, but a cylinder rather than a cone. Those clay slabs, but all fused together. A wall.”
“They built a wall around it!” Anne turned around in her seat. “We’ve got to see this thing!”
“No,” Moon began, but Anne spoke over him.
“You can get in the ATV and drive yourself wherever you want, Moon. Or come with us, or stay here with Lancelot and his friends.”
Moon looked at Anne, up the hill, and back. With sudden decisiveness, he kicked the door open, slithered out from under the dead mount, and ran flat out for his ATV. The engine hummed to life and the tires spun against the clay and ammonite-grass. Moon tore off for the west in a plume of fish-smelling dust.
Anne groaned and again grabbed a safety bar as her ATV lurched into motion as well. “Don’t worry!” Misha shouted. “We’re hot on his trail!”
“We won’t let him do anything,” said Daisuke.
Anne rubbed her face. “Anything more, you mean. We can’t post a watch on Moon. And we can’t save his life, make him our friend, and convince him to stop poking wormholes.”
“I thought we should try to be kind to him,” Daisuke said. “At least he didn’t blow up this wormhole.”
“Not because of anything we did,” Misha said. “I guess the cavaliers ambushed him before he could finish his experiment?”
“He was lying,” Anne said. “Right, Daisuke?”
“I think he wasn’t telling us everything,” said Daisuke. “Maybe we can discover more if we look at the scene of the crime?”
They rounded a crenelated hill to see all of the Nun squatting in front of a broad cylinder of clay.
“Too late,” Misha said.
Moon’s ATV slid to a stop. They could hear his cursing from there.
The cylinder was the same height as the henge-trees and Moon’s tower, which suggested a maximum height for builders. A rim of blue and purple showed just above that wall, the air around it bent. Purple, Moon had said. It certainly wasn’t the color of the plants of the Cavalier biome. So what was Anne looking at?
“What are the Nun doing?” asked Daisuke, spoiling Anne’s concentration. “What’s the word? A sit-in? A strike?”
Misha slowed their approach, yelling something in Nun. The nearest men yelled back, making go-away gestures and shaking their spears. Nobody stood up.
“They’re saying we should go away. We’re interfering with an important discussion,” Misha translated.
“They’re pissed off because we let Moon desecrate another wormhole, aren’t they?” Anne asked. “Tell them it wasn’t our fault.”
“It was our fault,” said Misha, but he said something to the Nun, who reacted by variously rubbing their faces with their hands, shaking their spears, or turning their faces away. Yunubey, still crouching, shouted something in very slow, clear words.
“He doesn’t care?” Misha asked. “He knows what Moon did? It wasn’t desecration, he just drove an ATV in and then out again. No problem.”
“Tell him we’ll stop him next ti
me,” Daisuke said. “Tell him—”
Anne gaped. “He drove into where?”
“Bilulum!” Yunubey bellowed, half rising from his squat with the effort, “Pergilah! Fuck away!”
“I think he means ‘Fuck off,’” said Misha. “Let me smooth this over.” He popped his door open, and all the Nun yelled in unison.
Anne looked out at the grass. It was standing erect again in the late afternoon cool, shading the tops of toymaker land-cruisers. It stirred in places.
“Misha,” Anne said quietly, “there are cavaliers all around us.”
They rose from the grass like lions. Mounts with their scything jaws, riders with their axe-shaped heads suspended on segmented necks like the stingers of scorpions. Clusters of pinot noir eyes turned toward them.
Anne realized how silent their gathering was. The Nun weren’t speaking and the cavaliers didn’t whistle. The only sounds were the panting of the mounts and the ticktocking of the toymakers.
“What’s that signal mean?” Anne whispered.
“Double-tocks,” Misha said. “That means ‘ready’ or ‘stand by’ or ‘safe’.”
Were the aliens speaking? How much information was actually being given and received? Was this language? Were these people? The Nun always said no to both questions. Could Anne believe them?
She shuddered. Can I trust him to trust me to trust him? Does he know that I know that he knows? The endless, exhausting mirror maze of consciousness. Much better to leave that tangle to the xeno-psychologists, or whatever it was people called themselves who studied alien minds. Their first task would be to determine whether the psychologists themselves had minds. What would the objective test for that be, exactly? The wise would run away screaming.
“Anne, what’s going on?” Misha asked.
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” she said. Their escort had surrounded them, but the cavaliers’ mandibles were closed, and she couldn’t smell any ammonia or lime. “No aggression or fear displays that I can recognize. Not that that means anyth—”
Daisuke grabbed her shoulder.
Anne looked up in time to see the pair of animals bob out from behind the fenced-in wormhole. Stilt-legs moved in placid ripples, supporting long, curved necks, graceful as any swan’s. Two heads rose and dipped, displaying Swiss Army-knife mouthparts. Anne’s eyes registered branched antlers, broad shovels, miniature combs, flat-tipped spatulas….
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