N-Space Part 39

"Well, what's it like?"

"It's . . . it's like I did a lot of research, and formed conclusions and checked them out and sometimes changed my mind, and it gave me a lot of satisfaction. There are still some open questions, like how the Soviets actually got the fission bomb, and the Vietnam War, and the Arab Takeover. But I know who's working on that, and . . . It's like that, but it Doesn't connect to anything. It sits in my head in a clump. But it's kind of fun, Windstorm, and I got it all in ten minutes. You want to hear a libelous song about President Peanut?"

Through the drizzle they could see the restless stirring of the Ring Ocean. A band of f.u.xes waited on the sand. Windstorm turned her howler in a graceful curve, back toward the blur of the crawlers' headlights, to lead them. Bronze Legs dowsed his lights and glided toward the f.u.xea.

They had chosen a good resting place, far from the dangerous sh.o.r.e, in a broad stretch of "black man's hair" that any marauder would have to cross. Most of the f.u.xes were lying down. The four-legged female had been impregnated six Medean days ago. Her time must be near. She scratched with sharp claws at her itching hindquarters.

Harvester came to meet Bronze Legs. The post-male biped was slow with age, but not clumsy. That tremendous length of black tail was good for his balance. It was tipped with a bronze spearhead. Harvester asked, "Will we follow the sh.o.r.eline? If we may choose, we will keep your vessels between us and the sh.o.r.e."

"We plan to go straight across," Bronze Legs told him. "You'll ride the raft behind the bigger vessel."

"In the water are things dangerous to us," said Harvester. He glanced sh.o.r.eward and added, "Things small, things large. A large one comes."

Bronze Legs took one look and reached for his intercom. "Lightning, Hairy, Jill Turn your searchlights on that thing, fast!"

The f.u.xes were up and reaching for their spears.

"So it's the f.u.xes who give you your nicknames," Rachel said. "Why did they call you Lightning?"

"I tend the machines that make lightning and move it through metal wires. At least, that's how we explained it to the f.u.xes. And Windstorm- you saw the big redhead girl on the other howler? She was on guard one earthnight when a troop of f.u.xes took a short cut through the wheat crop. She really gave them h.e.l.l. Half of Touchdown City must have heard her."

"And you? Grace."

"They named me when I was a lot younger." Grace glared at Lightning, who was very busy driving and clearly not listening, and by no means was he smiling. "But they didn't call me Grace. The way we have children, the f.u.xes think that's hilarious." Rachel didn't ask.

"They called me b.o.o.bs."

Rachel felt the need for a change of subject. "Lightning, are you getting tired? Would you like me to take over?"

"I'm okay. Can you drive a crawler?"

"Actually, I've never done it. I can run a howler, though. In any terrain."

"Maybe we'll give you one after-"

Then Bronze Legs' voice bellowed from the intercom.

Something came out of the ocean: a great swollen myriapod with tiny jointed arms moving around a funnel-shaped mouth. Teeth churned in the gullet.

The f.u.xes cast their spears and fled. Bronze Legs tucked Harvester under one arm and sped sh.o.r.eward; the howler listed to port. Deadeye fell behind; two f.u.xes turned back and took her arms and pulled her along.

The monster flowed up the beach, faster than any of them, ignoring the spears stuck in its flesh.

One, two, three searchlights flashed from the vehicles and played over the myriapod. The beams were bluish, unlike the headlights. Flare sunlight.

The myriapod stopped. Turned, clumsily, and began to retreat down the beach. It had nearly reached the water when it lost coordination. The legs thrashed frantically and without effect. As Rachel watched in horrible fascination, things were born from the beast.

They crawled from its back and sides. Hundreds of them. They were dark red and dog-sized. They did not leave the myriapod, they stayed on it, feeding. Its legs were quiet now.

Three of the f.u.xes darted down the beach, s.n.a.t.c.hed up their fallen spears and retreated just as fast. The mynapod was little more than a skeleton now, and the dog-sized feeders were beginning to spread across the sand.

The f.u.xes climbed aboard the air-cushioned raft that trailed behind the mobile power plant. They arranged their packs and settled themselves. The paired vehicles lifted and glided toward the water. Lightning lifted the crawler and followed.

Rachel said, "But-"

"We'll be okay," Lightning a.s.sured her. "We'll stay high and cross fast, and there are always the searchlights."

"Grace, tell him! There are animals that like the searchlights!"

Grace patted her hand. The expedition set off across the water.

The colony around Touchdown City occupied part of a fat peninsula projecting deep into the Ring Sea. It took the expedition twelve hours to cross a bay just smaller than the Gulf of Mexico.

Vermilion sc.u.m patches covered the water. Schools of flying non-fish veered and dived at sight of the wrong-colored headlights. The f.u.xes stayed flat on their platform . . . but the water was smooth, the ride was smooth, and nothing attacked them.

The rain stopped, and left Phrixus and h.e.l.le far up the morning sky. The cloud-highway of the Jet Stream showed through a broken cloud deck. Lightning and the other drivers left their headlights on, since the sea life seemed to avoid them.

Somewhere in there, Rachel reclined her chair and went to sleep.

She woke when the crawler settled and tilted under her. Her brain was muzzy . . . and she had slept with the recorder on. That disturbed her. Usually she switched it off to sleep. Dreams were private.

The crawler's door had dropped to form a stairway, and the crawler was empty. Rachel went out.

The crawlers, howlers, raft and mobile power plant were parked in a circle, and tents had been set up inside. There was no living human being in sight. Rachel shrugged; she stepped between a howler and the raft, and stopped.

This was nothing like the Medea she'd seen up to now.

Rolling hills were covered with chrome yellow bushes. They stood waist high, and so densely packed that no ground was visible anywhere. Clouds of insects swarmed, and sticky filaments shot up from the bushes to stab into the swarms.

The f.u.xes had cut themselves a clearing. They tended one who was restless, twitching. Bronze Legs Miller hailed her from their midst.

Rachel waded through the bushes. They resisted her like thick tar.

The insects scattered away from her.

"Deadeye's near her time," Bronze Legs said. "Poor baby. We won't move on until she's dropped her 'nest.'"

The f.u.x showed no swelling of pregnancy. Rachel remembered what she had been told of the f.u.x manner of bearing children. Suddenly she didn't want to see it. Yet how could she leave? She would be omitting a major part of the experience of Medea.

She compromised. She whispered earnestly to Bronze Legs, "Should we be here? Won't they object?"

He laughed. "We're here because we make good insect repellants."

"No. We like humans." Deadeye's voice was slurred. Now Rachel saw that the left eye was pink, with no pupil. "Are you the one who has been among the stars?"

"Yes."

The feverish f.u.x reached up to take Rachel's hand. "So much strangeness in the world. When we know all of the world, it may be we will go among the stars too. You have great courage." Her fingers were slender and hard, like bones. She let go to claw at the hairless red rash between her front and back legs. Her tail thrashed suddenly, and Bronze Legs dodged.

The f.u.x was quiet for a time. A six-legged f.u.x sponged her back with water, the sponge seemed to be a Medean plant. Deadeye said, "I learned from humans that 'deadeye' meant 'accurate of aim.' I set out to be the best spear-caster in.. ." She trailed off into a language of barking and yelping. The odd-looking biped held conversation with her. Perhaps he was soothing her.

Deadeye howled-and fell apart. She crawled forward, pulling against the ground with hands and forefeet, and her hindquarters were left behind. The hindquarters were red and dripping at the juncture, and the tail slid through them: more than a meter of thick black tail, stained with red, and as long as Harvester's now. The other f.u.xes came forward, some to tend Deadeye, some to examine the hindquarters. . . in which muscles were still twitching.

Ten minutes later Deadeye stood up. He made it look easy; given his tail and his low center of ma.s.s, perhaps it was. He spoke in his own language, and the f.u.xes filed away into the yellow bushes. In the human tongue Deadeye said, "I must guard my nest. Alone. Travel safely."

"See you soon," Bronze Legs said. He led Rachel after the f.u.xes. "He won't want company now. He'll guard the 'nest' till the little ones eat most of it and come out. Then he'll go s.e.x-crazy, but by that time we'll be back. How are you feeling?"

"A little woozy," Rachel said. "Too much blood."

"Take my arm."

The color of their arms matched perfectly.

"Is she safe here? I mean he. Deadeye."

"He'll learn to walk faster than you think, and he's got his spear. We haven't seen anything dangerous around. Rachel, they don't have a safety hangup."

"I don't understand."

"Sometimes they get killed. Okay, they get killed. Deadeye has his reasons for being here. If his children live, they'll own this place. Some of the adults'll stay to help them along. That's how they get new territory."

Confusing. "You mean they have to be born here?"

"Right. f.u.xes visit. They don't conquer. After awhile they have to go home. Grace is still trying to figure if that's physiology or just a social quirk. But sometimes they visit to give birth, and that's how they get new homes. I don't think f.u.xes'll ever be s.p.a.ce travelers."

"We have it easier."

"That we do."

"Bronze Legs, I want to make love to you."

He missed a step. He didn't look at her. "No. Sorry."

"Then," she said a little desperately, "will you at least tell me what's wrong? Did I leave out a ritual, or take too many baths or something?"

Bronze Legs said, "Stage fright."

He sighed when he saw that she didn't understand. "Look, ordinarily I'd be looking for some privacy for us . . . which wouldn't be easy, because taking your clothes off in an unfamiliar domain . . . never mind. When I make love with a woman I don't want a billion strangers criticizing my technique."

"The memory tapes."

"Right. Rachel, I don't know where you find men who want that kind of publicity. Windstorm and I, we let a post-male watch us once . . . but after all, they aren't human."

"I could turn off the tape."

"It records memories, right? Unless you forgot about me completely, which I choose to consider impossible, you'd be remembering me for the record. Wouldn't you?"

She nodded. And went back to the crawler to sleep. Others would be sleeping in the tents; she didn't want the company.

The howler's motor was half old, half new. The new parts had a handmade look: bulky, with file marks. One of the fans was newer, cruder, heavier than the other. Rachel could only hope the Medeans were good with machinery.

The tough-looking redhead asked, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"I took a howler across most of Koschei," Rachel told her. She straightened, then swung up onto the saddle. Its original soft plastic seat must have disintegrated, what replaced it looked and felt like tanned skin. "Top speed, a hundred and forty kilometers an hour. Override-this switch-boosts the fans so I can fly. Ten minutes of flight, then the batteries block up and I've got to come down. Six slots in the ground-effect skirt so I can go in any direction. The main thing is to keep my balance. Especially when I'm flying."

Windstorm did not seem rea.s.sured. "You won't get that kind of performance out of a fifty-year-old machine. Treat it tender. And don't fly if you're in a hurry, because you'll be using most of the power just to keep you up. Two more things-" She reached out to put Rachel's hands on a switch and a k.n.o.b. Her own hands were large and strong, with prominent veins. "Searchlight. This k.n.o.b swings it around, and this raises and lowers it. It's your best weapon. If it Doesn't work, flee. Second thing is your goggles. Sling them around your neck."

"Where are they?"

Windstorm dug goggles from the howler's saddlebag: a flexible strap and two large hemispheres of red gla.s.s. A similar set swung from her own neck. "You should never have to ask that question again on Medea. Here."

The other vehicles were ready to go. Windstorm jogged to her own howler, leaving Rachel with the feeling that she had failed a test.

It was past noon of the Medean day. Harvester was riding Giggles, the six-legged virgin. The rest of the f.u.xes rode the ground-effect raft. The vehicles rode high, above the forest of chrome yellow bushes.

Windstorm spoke from the intercom. "We stay ahead of the crawlers and to both sides. We're looking for anything dangerous. If you see something you're afraid of, sing out. Don't wait."

Rachel eased into position. The feel of the howler was coming back to her. It weighed half a kiloton, but you still did some of your steering by shifting weight. . . . "Windstorm, aren't you tired?"

"I got some sleep while Deadeye was dropping her hindquarters."

Maybe Windstorm didn't trust anyone else to supervise the rammer. Rachel was actually relieved. It struck her that most Medeans had lost too many of their "safety hangups."

The bushes ended sharply, at the sh.o.r.e of a fast-flowing river carrying broad patches of scarlet sc.u.m. Some of the patches bloomed with flowers of startling green. Harvester boarded the raft to cross.

There was wheatfield beyond, but the yellow plants were feathery and four meters high. Hemispheres of white rock appeared with suspicious regularity. The expedition had swung around to north-and-heatward. Argo stood above the peaks of a rounded mountain range. Many-limbed birds rode the air above them.

Rachel looked up to see one dropping toward her face.

She could see the hooked beak and great claws aiming at her eyes. Her blind fingers sought the searchlight controls. She switched on the searchlight and swung the beam around and up. Like a laser cannon: first fire, then aim. Calmly, now.

The beam found the bird and illuminated it iii blue fire: a fearsome sight. Wings like oiled leather, curved meat-ripping beak, muscular forelegs with long talons: and the hind legs were long, slender, and tipped each with a single sword blade. They weren't for walking at all, nor for anything but weaponry.

The bird howled, shut its eyes tight, and tried to turn in the air. Its body curled in a ball; its wings folded around it. Rachel dropped the beam to keep it pinned until it smacked hard into the wheatfield.

The intercom said, "Nice."

"Thank you." Rachel sounded deceptively calm.

"Grace wants to call a halt," Windstorm said. "Up by that next boulder."

"Fine."

The boulders were all roughly the same size: fairly regular hemispheres one and a half meters across.

Grace and Bronze Legs came out of the crawler lugging instruments on a dolly. They unloaded a box on one side of the boulder, and Grace went to work on it. Bronze Legs moved the dolly around to the other side and unfurled a silver screen. When Rachel tried to speak, Grace shushed her. She fiddled a bit with various dials, then turned on the machine.

A shadow-show formed on the screen: a circle of shadow, and darker shapes within. Grace cursed and touched dials, feather-lightly. The blurred shadows took on detail.