Paul Di Filippo - WikiWorld

Storm admired the sight for a short time, then homed in on the scent of his fellow wardens. Following a steep path, he reached a broad stony beach. There he found ten wardens finishing the construction of their ship, and ten Kodiak Kangemus picking idly at drifts of seaweed and bivalves.

Six of the wardens worked around a composite UPD device. Their individual reconfigurable units had been slaved together in order to produce larger-than-normal output pieces. Three wardens fed biomass into the conjoined hopper, while three others handled the output, ferrying it to the workers on the ship. Those other four wardens, consulting printed plans, snapped the superwood pieces into place on the nearly completed vessel.

At first no one noticed Storm. But then he was spotted by a female, noteworthy for her unique piebald colouration.

“Ho! It’s the supercargo!”

Storm bristled at the slight, but said nothing. He dropped down off Bergamot, shooing the beast towards its companions.

The ten wardens hastened to group themselves around Storm, in a not-unfriendly manner.

“You’re Storm,” said the pretty pinto female. Her voice was sweet and chirpy, her demeanour mischievous. “I’m Jizogirl. The weather mind told us you’d be here today. Just in time, too! Let me introduce everyone.”

During the hellos, Storm uneasily sized up his new companions—all of whom were at least a few years older than he, and in some instances decades.

Pankey, Arp, Rotifero, Wrinkles and Bunter were males. Tallest of the ten, Pankey’s bold mien bespoke a natural leadership. Arp managed to look bored and inquisitive simultaneously. Elegant Rotifero paid little attention to Storm, instead preferring to present his best profile to the ladies. Wrinkles plainly derived his name from his exaggerated patagium: the folds of flesh beneath a warden’s arms that allowed brief aerial gliding. Bunter, plump as a pumpkin, was sniffing suspiciously in the direction of Storm’s panniers.

Beyond the charming Jizogirl: Catmaul exhibited an athlete’s lithe strength; Faizai echoed Rotifero’s sexual preening; Shamrock was plainly itching to get back to work, as if looking to impress Pankey and secure the number-two slot; and Gumball shyly pondered her own paw-feet rather than make eye-contact with Storm.

“Pleased to meet you all,” said Storm. “I’m anxious to learn more about our mission. I hope I’ll be an asset.”

Pankey spoke. “You are rather the hundredth-and-one leg on a centipede, you know. We had a complete roster without you butting in.”

“Pankey! For shame!” Jizogirl made up for her earlier quip about “supercargo” in Storm’s eyes with this remonstrance, and he chose to appear unaffected by Pankey’s gibe.

“I know I can be of some use. Just tell me what to do.”

“Well, we want to sail at dawn, and we still have several hours of work to accomplish before dark. So if you could possibly pitch in—”

“Of course. Just point me toward a task.”

“Why don’t you collect biomass for now? It’s the simplest chore.”

Storm bit his tongue against a defence of his own abilities, and merely said, “Sure. Should I slave my UPD to the others?”

Pankey frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course.”

Storm did so. Then, removing a sharp, strong nanocellulose machete from his panniers (and also some cinnabons for everyone, much welcomed), he headed toward a stand of spartina. Soon, with energetic effort, he had accumulated a surplus of the tall grass, and so was able to take a break. He strolled onboard the ship to learn more about it. He saw that the superwood components were being grafted into place with various epoxies from the UPD.

Rotifero spied Storm and gestured grandly, eager to abandon his own work and act as tour guide. “The Slippery Squid ! A sharp ship, isn’t she? We should make it to the Sandwich Islands in just five days.”

“So fast?”

Rotifero motioned for Storm to look over the side at the ship’s unique construction. “The humans called this model the hydroptére. Multihulled, very fast. But here’s the real secret.”

Rotifero walked to the fore of the ship and kicked at a bundle of neatly sorted fabric and lines. “She’s a kiteship. Once we get this scoop aloft, the weather mind provides an unceasing wind. We should average fifty knots. Old Tropo even keeps us on the proper heading. No navigation necessary. Which is fine by me, as I don’t know a sextant from an astrolabe.”

Storm nodded sagely, although the instruments named were unfamiliar to him. “And what do we do when we arrive in Hawaii?”

“Ah, I’d best let Pankey explain all that tonight. He’s our leader, you know, and he rather resents anyone stepping on his lines. Say, what do you think of Fazai? Aren’t her ears the perkiest and hairiest you’ve ever seen? You know what they say: ‘Ears with tufts, can’t get enough!’”

Storm felt hot blood flash beneath his furry face. Wardens lived solitary lives, each responsible for vast bioregions, meeting only infrequently. At such times, mating was lustily indulged in, with gene-regulated, reversible contraceptive locks firmly in place. In his two decades of family-centric life, Storm had not yet managed to meet a free female and mate. In fact, the unprecedented presence of so many of his kind in such proximity rather unnerved him.

“I—I wouldn’t know.”

Rotifero jabbed an elbow into Storm’s ribs. “I realize the ten of us’re paired up evenly already, but don’t worry. One of the does will probably take pity on you. If any of them have a spare minute!”

Storm’s embarrassment flicked to hurt pride in an instant. “Thanks, I’m sure. But I’m used to Great Lakes does. They’re much nicer in every way.”

Pankey put a stop to any further amatory talk with a shouted, “Hey, you two, back to work!”

Storm spent the rest of the afternoon chopping and hauling spartina, and trying not to think of Faizai’s ears.

Twilight brought successful completion of all their tasks. Sailing at dawn was assured, Pankey confirmed. A driftwood fire was kindled, tasty food was fabbed from spartina fed into the now separated UPDs (the same method by which the voyagers would sustain themselves at sea; the proseity units could desalinate seawater as well), and everyone settled down around the flames on UPD-fabbed cushions laid over mattresses of dried seaweed. Conversation was casual, and Storm mainly listened. He soon deduced that the ten wardens all hailed from up and down the Pacific Coast, and knew each other to varying degrees.

When all had finished eating, Pankey stood, and the others, including Storm, snapped to attention.

“I will endeavour to bring our newest member up to speed,” said the tall warden, grooming his muzzle somewhat self-consciously. “But this is a good time for anyone else to ask questions as well, if you’re unsure of anything.

“We ten—excuse me, we eleven—have been constituted an ERT—an Emergency Response Team—by the tropospheric mind—Old Tropo, if he’ll permit the familiarity—and given the assignment of straightening out the mess in Hawaii. All the wardens in that chain of islands have perished, assassinated by Mauna Loa, sister to Tropo, who wishes to enslave all the mobile entities of that biosphere.

“We are all familiar, I believe, with the phenomenon of ‘rogue lobes,’ isolated colonies of virgula and sublimula which descend to the ground as star jelly. Usually, their lifetimes are extremely short and erratic, given their separation from the main currents of the weather mind. But in the case of Mauna Loa, we have an intelligent and self-sustaining organism, unfortunately quite deranged and exhibiting no signs of possessing any ethical constraints.