Earth in Twilight, page 4
He fell to the ground, wildly thrashed about for a short while before reaching for his sword and attempting to sever his arm at the elbow. He had the will but not the strength. Even as he raised the weapon to try once again the infection crawled across the wound and attacked healthy tissue.
By the time Peru decided he had witnessed sufficient of the results of his labor and walked away toward the camp, the man was nearly consumed. There were twitchings, lunges, bubblings and a myriad of stilled protests but gradually all activity ceased. With time the loathsome lump lying in front of the cave would dry out and become dust.
There were fifty woman-haters in the tribe. All but twelve had families hidden in the jungle. They didn’t like Peru and knew he wasn’t really Lampla but he seemed to be male and it would never have occurred to them to try to turn him away from their midst. They might be neurotic and hypocritical but never could it be said they were inhospitable.
They lived in individual ivy caves scattered along a single limb of a tree, comfortable enough homes except that they were lonely and messy. It was easy to find food and the morning dew always laid enough moisture on the leaves so that they dripped most of the day. The limb was well protected from the sun by the great bridge of strands high in the air above the tree so there was little evaporation or dehydration.
Candress especially didn’t care for Lampla, primarily because the newcomer was arrogant and full of confidence. There wasn’t much he could do about his dislike because after Peru thumped him on the shoulder by way of a greeting he began having severe pain in that part of him. Eventually he retreated to his cave to rest and recuperate from a decidedly hot and hurting case of bursitis. Or something.
Disease discovered everything there was to know about the woman-haters and then left them to their own affairs, but not before they were all infected with his deadly by-products. He was learning and accumulating intelligence. It wasn’t necessary for him personally to give his enemies a dose of nastiness. Take, for instance, Candress, who moaned and rolled about in his cave until he got on everyone’s nerves. His sore was beginning to open and drain, just a bit, and before long someone would go in and try to lend assistance. The new man would get infected by touching the foul matter, which had adapted and could now swoop through pores. He would transport the lethal cells to the others. Peru might be gone a week or even longer before the last warrior fell amidst his own rot. It depended upon how merciful the people were to one another.
They were all doomed. The criminal didn’t care. Or rather he would have cared if any survived. He intended to fulfill his mission, the same as anyone else, and it had been dictated by fate. Whatever one must do, one simply did. Never mind free will. What was that but an unidentifiable pain?
Chapter 5
Whing had to go to work and cleanse the steeple of vermin. There was a never-ending horde of small and yet smaller things sneaking onto the edifice at one spot or another so that he continually had to be on the job. It was annoying to catch movement from the corner of his eye, to hear furtive scurrying, to sense the presence of pests. They never did any good but only bothered him and polluted his home. As a man, he knew his steeple was the only one on Earth still fit to handle an incoming spaceship. All the others had fallen prey to time and scavengers.
This trip he had to go nearly halfway to the ground to really scour the tower. Wherever he went life forms were routed from their places, squealing, grunting, protesting, but none of them tried resisting. Whing weighed an enormous amount that had been spawned far above the planet where there was no atmosphere.
He had a feral streak in him that he indulged whenever he cornered a hardhead. He might batter or even torture a bit before booting the trespasser out into free air. There was plenty of that and any pretenders to his throne were welcome to enough of it to force them to try their wings.
“You’re too testy,” Odeeda said to him during a break in his labors. “What makes you think you’re good companionship?”
Whing eyed her with what he intended to be a withering expression. It would never do for her to read any admiration for her in his looks or actions because she was already bursting with self-importance. They communicated by opening and closing little flaps growing on their sides. By noisily creating puffs of air and timing the power and length of the puffing, they could allow their thoughts to be known. “I notice you’re very sedentary today,” he said with irascible little tootings of air. “One might think you’d laid an egg and were keeping it warm.” Glowering, he stooped over in an attempt to see beneath her fat bottom. “You haven’t done that, have you? Laid another egg, I mean? You know I’ve forbidden it.”
“I remember, I haven’t forgotten and I didn’t do it,” she said, neglecting to move over so that he could see the center of the nest. Her normal place was on a heavy cluster of strands attached to the steeple approximately a third of the way down. He didn’t like her on the higher strands because she did poorly up there, failed to breathe properly and complained endlessly about the weather. In fact nobody was allowed up there. It made him feel hemmed in to have too much company, and it made him feel challenged.
“I’m going lower to clean house,” he said. “See that you bear me a live child when I return. As men we only do it that way.”
“I’ll do my best.”
The lower he went down the metal stalk the more things took to their webs, strings, vines or simply feet to get away from him. He was like a dust mop probing in the most obscure corners, disturbing and terrifying, evicting without mercy.
“And don’t come back!” he tooted at them, hanging out over the clouds to watch their progress, knowing that a percentage of them would return as soon as he was gone. There was something about living high above everyone else that appealed to certain individuals, so there would always be plenty of them to harass and annoy him. It had to do with ego and the misuse of power. No matter how far the tales of his superiority carried, there were perennial younglings with more bravado than brains.
Not having an altruistic bone in his body and not caring that he hadn’t, Whing did a good job of scattering nuisances living in a third or so of his high-rise, after which he went back toward the top spires. By the time he arrived at his nest several weeks had gone by.
Odeeda didn’t have time to hatch her egg or hide it in the strands. As she went over the side of the bridge, propelled by her mate’s foot, she tucked the gem beneath a horny flap and then concentrated on locating a solid bridge somewhere in the depths below. She hadn’t much maneuvering ability but the lack wasn’t so drastic since there was a plenitude of spans.
She came to a bouncing rest near a bloody-headed savage of beautiful green and yellow colors, long body and intelligent emerald eyes. Instead of trying to beat her up or throw her out this male scrutinized her, examined her all over and then proceeded to wash her face with a rough tongue. He tried to tell her he was an ornad while she attempted to impart the information that she was a steeple sentry but their tootings of air were foreign to each other.
No matter, the universal language of affection and mutual approbation was sufficient and they both settled down for a nap. There was no holding back on either side as far as secrets were concerned, with a single exception. Odeeda kept her egg hidden and never let the ornad know of its existence.
Meanwhile Whing grew weary of waiting for her to return and went looking for her. It never occurred to him that she might have fallen to her death and now lay broken and crushed somewhere on the land. No, she was safely planted somewhere like a huge blue bruise, ensconced in comfort on someone’s pad. It had happened before, many times. In fact, kicking her out of the nest and waiting for her to climb back up was an activity he engaged in with regularity. She hadn’t the decency to come home after he evicted her but always lagged until he went after her.
This time he discovered her quite low to the ground, no more than a few thousand feet up on a strand with an ornad, and a crippled one at that. This beast looked as if he had stuck the side of his head in a meat grinder and there was Odeeda washing his wounds with her tongue.
Dark thoughts crossed Whing’s mind. What had she done with the blasted egg? And while he was-on the subject, whose egg was it? How could it be his when his young man was supposed to be born alive and kicking?
Such questions confused him. Though he always punished Odeeda for laying eggs he usually saw what hatched from them, and the younglings bore a disconcerting resemblance to him. Were they a mixture of ornad or some other foreigner, wouldn’t they look out of the ordinary and not exactly like Odeeda’s husband?
Scratching his head in anger, he hung to the side of the steeple and watched his wife and the ornad. As usual she was making a fool of herself dancing and showing off by rolling like a ball. If he fetched her now she would insult and taunt him all the way back up to the nest. Not to mention that she might not want to come. He wasn’t in the mood for a quarrel. Besides, beating up on his wife would be unmanly of him. Added to that, she was too big for him to beat up.
Into hospitable reaches he climbed slowly and morosely, thinking that Odeeda complicated his life to an extent that was nearly intolerable. If it hadn’t been that he missed her when she was gone he would have put her out of his mind and his life.
Clinging to a girder, he hung out as far as possible and bellowed at the top of his lungs. From a far distance came an answering cry, deep and belligerent. Probably a scrate. Conceivably another sentry, though they never grew as large as Whing. Imagine one of his scrawny cousins inviting him to war.
With a full-throated roar he swung back and forth on the girder and even thumped his chest with a fist. Again a faint answer wafted across the miles, uninhibited by thick atmosphere. Up here it was thin and clean. Whing hadn’t the sense to realize that the acceptor of his challenge was on a nearby bridge. Not that it mattered. There were no wars fought down here on the strands by the giants of the sky.
Infuriated because his insult had engendered a response, he made haste toward the summit of his turf. Meanwhile other creatures heard the scrate on the bridge and took up the cry, passed it along to the next steeple that housed several denizens.
Not all the creatures within earshot of the call to arms were space warriors and not everyone was free that day, so the number of those who headed for the steeple top was about twenty. The majority were distracted before reaching their destination while others decided they weren’t in the mood for a fight. Some remembered they were hungry, a few recalled their aching heads or hides, others just plain forgot what they were about. Of those who had intended to go to war only four lifted off the steeple tip.
Fat, heavy, cumbersome, vividly colored, winged or not, multi-legged, multi-eyed, skin like steel leather or leathery steel, shelled or pronged, they were all different and, like Whing, rushed to the arena with thundering hearts and cascading blood.
Whing didn’t bother going inside the steeple where artificial atmosphere would have allowed him to climb at a sedate pace nearly to the top. Instead he stayed where he was and fought against the planet’s gravity, pulled and hauled with his mighty arms. He didn’t care if physics demanded that he travel at twenty-five thousand miles an hour and be of a certain mass and weight to escape that tremendous pull. He was a sentry, born and bred in a kind of briar patch in a hidey hole forty thousand miles above the sod of home. He didn’t care about natural law, so he pulled and hauled his incredible body up through clouds that felt like dense cheese. Thicker and heavier grew the cheese but he grew even heavier and forced his way through.
Gradually the way grew easier, became less dense and even perforated. He worked his way into the openings and through them and then all at once he let go of the girder and leaped up several hundred yards. Like a blissful tune or a frothy feather he sailed weightlessly, sublime.
To the top he went and spread his arms to the sky. While he held onto the steeple with his feet he beat his chest and screamed his mighty war cry. There was no sound. The moon blazed at him from over his shoulder while the sun disgorged yellow brimstone miles into space. He twisted back and forth on his perch, staring, probing darkness with his eyes, watching for the first antagonist to make an appearance. The little holes in his ears were closed now by a strong membrane. Likewise his large eyes were protected by a heavy, transparent sheath that permitted him full vision and even a special kind of sight. It would be a long while before he had to go back down where the air blew.
Back and forth on the shiny metal edge he swayed, rocked to and fro by every motion he made. Then he saw it, saw her, the huge scrate rising in the sunlight like a mutated phoenix, black and fearsome in silhouette against the burning moon. Her wings useless and even unnecessary now, the scrate hastened to the place of war by blowing puffs of air from tubes in her sides. She was the fastest thing aloft these days but her weapons weren’t the best and so she wasn’t the most formidable of contestants. Still her beak was capable of denting the hardest of armor and occasionally her claws could scratch an eye or a vulnerable section of neck or underbelly.
Tooting, sailing through vacuum like the prow of a ship, Scrate headed toward the steeple and the blowhard named Whing. Blue boob. Senseless sentry. Scrate was full of zest and confidence. It had been too long since anyone sounded the challenge. She hadn’t the foresight to sound it herself and thereby put an end to the sabbatical of peace. Now it was fight time. The bout would soon begin, just as soon as she really got into perfect position, tooted a little harder to build up her speed, and then to the fore!
Behind her came Quell, slower, more ominous in appearance. He was a huge round creature with two curved antennae sticking from the top of his head. His rear end was small and knobby. He had been outflown, outmaneuvered and battered by Scrate during their last fight and so even though he traveled toward the steeple where Whing waited he in truth had it in mind to inflict damage upon the winged warrior. One thing he couldn’t stand was a female who never shut her mouth and Scrate filled that bill better than anyone he knew.
From out of a pocket of black mist came the huge and lumbering Talion. She had just laid an egg in a secret place on the old steeple and worried that she might be destroyed in the flight and not make it back to witness the birth of her youngling. Still, she never hesitated to go out and meet the enemy. Red and gray in color, she supported a shell that was nearly impervious to attack. Her head poked out at an eager angle while all around her protective covering feet with nails like rapiers made swimming motions. The motions were all show. Talion could have swam in vacuum until doomsday without generating any propulsion. Her maneuvering power came from between her toes where small holes allowed gas to escape. The longer she went without air the more gas built up inside her internal organs. By the time the space battles drew to an end she was usually flying rings around her opponents but because of her lack of confidence she was seldom a winner. Rarely was she ever damaged either so there was no good reason why she worried about her egg. It would have taken more than the other three giants to crack her shell.
The victory honor was usually reserved for Whing who either hadn’t the brains to know when he was outmatched or had more than his share of ego. Now he gave a silent whoop and pushed off from the steeple in a straight line toward Scrate. He slowed and drifted a bit because the big bird was more interested in the beast behind her and had sailed off course.
Silhouetted against the melting sun, the giants whirled and circled like buzzards over an invisible carcass, dipping, swaying, darting in to attack and then quickly retreating. Whing had hold of tail feathers in one hand while he attempted to bite one of Quell’s antennae. The horn was like malleable metal and slid away from him, leaving not so much as a bit of skin in his teeth.
Quell turned and tried to ram Talion, who grappled with Whing and attempted to claw furrows in the sentry’s blue back. Mouths opened to grunt and groan, flaps fluttered to emit gas, eyes bulged behind protective lids and breathing was suspended until the need for air superseded the glory of combat. They were a silent motion picture and none would have said the fun of what they were doing outweighed all else, but it was true. Hatred was a pretense, as were savagery and callousness.
Quell lost a nail somewhere, just a small one in comparison with the great cry he gave. It was a noiseless complaint and Scrate knew she had scored only by the way the great humped creature’s mouth yawned wide. Meanwhile her rear feathers were being gnawed by Whing who never gave quarter, not even when the three ganged up on him. They always grew annoyed by his persistent and skillful attacks. Plainly he had few esthetic appreciations and didn’t enjoy it when the others momentarily left the battle to do some calisthenics in view of the starlight.
One of Talion’s eyes was bruised by a ramming antenna. Maddened more by smarting pride than pain, she turned on Quell and clasped the beast in her many arms. Meantime a drill-like weapon on her belly worked at piercing the fuzzy brown flesh. Bucking and kicking, Quell managed to free himself and then rammed her again. Talion went bulleting away into a blackness of swirling dust and hurtling debris.
She didn’t come back. The others saw her circle far out of fighting range and then she headed back toward her steeple. Perhaps she was running out of gas or it could be that thoughts of her egg encouraged her to call it quits. It never entered the heads of the others that she might be injured, and in fact she was not. Nature had seen to it that nothing short of global disaster could harm the giants. In fact Talion had drifted so far from the arena that she forgot about the battle. Time was meaningless to her because there was always enough of it to do whatever she wanted. Now she hurried home to wait for another day and another challenge.
Scrate hadn’t had enough and hurried to battle Quell who in turn was trying to outmaneuver Whing. The three met in a head-on collision that sent them in different directions. Quickly they hurried to a meeting place again, crossed paths and grappled. Quell was in the middle and had a horn yanked by Scrate’s beak. As always he felt the pressure deep down inside his head and gave a roar of protest. His horns grew into his brain and he had no intention of being rendered simple-minded by an overgrown bird.
