Brian Stableford - Asgard's Heart

There was only one thing I could do, and that was to dive down to the region where the insects lived, beneath the lowest leaves. There was a narrow space down there where even a man might crawl, if he’d a mind to. Doing snake-imitations is not usually my kind of thing, but when death is only a few metres away you have to improvise as best you can.

Flattening myself out, I tried to pull myself along with my arms and scramble with my feet, almost as though I was pretending to swim. It was pretty crowded at ground level, because the entire space was seething with panic-stricken insects that didn’t know which way to run, but were totally committed to the project of getting somewhere fast. They were still shrieking their hymn of complaint from all sides. I hated the noise, but I could sympathise with the way they felt.

As I did my silly parody of the breast-stroke I could feel the muscles in my back protesting. I could feel the stickiness of my shirt, but couldn’t make a guess as to how badly I was bleeding. I took a little comfort from knowing that the Isthomi were top-flight medical men when it came to repairing bodies and making people immortal, and that they’d already made me a promise that they’d wrought some considerable improvements in the quality of my flesh, but as the pain built to an excruciating level that comfort seemed to fade away.

It faded away even further when the question rose belatedly in my mind as to why there was an enormous mechanical praying mantis trying to destroy me in the Isthomi’s own back garden. The fact that it had been able to make its grand entrance at all suggested that something was yet again amiss in the state of Isthomia. If it was not, the Nine would surely have managed to give us a little notice of impending danger, even if they didn’t have the heavy metal to nip it in the bud.

As I continued crawling, I began to feel that I was in a uniquely awkward situation. I had no idea where I was going, and no way of knowing whether the monster mantis was right on my heels. I had no weapon of my own and was well and truly separated from Susarma Lear. The indigenous insects didn’t seem to want me in their underworld, and didn’t seem to want to get out of my way to ease my passage. Fortunately, I had every reason to think that they were not given to biting, stinging, or otherwise being nasty, though the repulsiveness of their touch made their company quite unpleasant enough. I imagined that they were tolerated in this garish scheme of things because they pollinated the flowers, but I couldn’t help feeling that a tastefully designed and suitably-programmed robot could have done the job more economically.

I got to a place where even the space beneath the foliage became unbearably constricted, occupied by a tangle of what looked to me like surface-lying adventitious roots. They fanned out from a central stem, and I had moved into a closed V-shaped space, cornering myself. I had no alternative but to stand up, and was glad to find that the leaves above my head were fern-like, and that they parted easily. Unfortunately, their delicacy was compensated by profusion, and when I was drawn up to my full height they were still clustered above my head. When I looked up I could catch a glimmer of light filtering through the translucent foliage, but could see almost nothing.

The insects were quieter now, and when I rose to my feet the ones I had been disturbing with my snake-act decided that I was no longer a threat to their sanity and well-being. They gradually ceased their awful keening. I was able to stand still and listen.

I didn’t know what kind of sound would be made by a mantis-dragon stomping through a giant’s garden, but I figured that its progress would probably alarm the insects just as much as mine, and once I had ascertained that there was no cacophonous whistling in the neighbourhood, I came to the conclusion that I was relatively safe.

Because I wanted to see where I was, I decided to climb a tree. This wasn’t easy, because there were no authentic trees in the place—merely overgrown bushes with limp branches. Nevertheless, the topmost parts of the canopy, which extended all of ten metres into the air to bask in the glow of the fifteen-metre ceiling, were borne aloft by relatively sturdy stems, and I was able to pick my way through the ferny stuff to a stem bearing a particularly solid leaf.

There was an insufficiency of decent footholds, and the stem swayed alarmingly when I shifted my weight. The pain in my wounded back didn’t help, either, and I had a fearsome headache caused by a combination of Shockwave concussion and screeching insects. But I managed to climb, drawing on those hidden resources of strength that our bodies prudently save for moments of terrorized hyperactivity.

When I got to a reasonable vantage point, with my feet on one leaf-stem and my hands clutching another, balanced as safely as I was able, I looked around—and promptly wished that I hadn’t.

Big the monster mantis might be, but it obviously wasn’t very heavy. Its great long legs were protruding in every direction—I could count ten of them now I could see the thing in all its hideous glory—and it was moving three or four of them at a time, finding new purchase wherever it could. It was coming over the top of the canopy, and it was already turning from its previous path to head straight for me, having caught a glimpse of me with its three remaining eyes the moment I stuck my head out into the open.

I wasted no time in clambering down—I jumped, half-falling and half-sliding through the thick vegetation. But with the ground still cluttered by the root-ridges there was no way I could hug the turf and crawl, so I ended up in a furtive crouch, trying to step over the ridges as fast as I possibly could, hoping to reach a space which I could share with the inhospitable insects.

One of the great pincers smashed down beside me, trying to stab rather than to grab, missing me by a margin that was far too small for comfort. There was a tearing sound from above as the other grabber began tearing at the foliage, trying to get a sight of me. I jinked to the left, then to the right, trying to confuse any extrapolation of my path its mechanical brain might be making, but it obviously got another brief sight of me because the hand came groping through the vegetation again, closing with a vicious snap no more than a dozen centimetres from my left ear.

The insect chorus was in full swing again now, filling my ears with raw sound lacking even that elementary aesthetic propriety that one might imaginatively credit to the last trump.

I stumbled over a root, but thrust myself instantly to my feet again, and ran on as fast as my feet could carry me across such disadvantageous territory. The arm reached out for me just once more, unsuccessfully, and then I suddenly found myself confronting an open space—a clearing where the only things which grew were no higher than the top of my boot. It was star-shaped, and maybe twenty or thirty metres across. When I saw it my heart leapt, as I realised that here was somewhere I could really run, but almost immediately it sank again as I realised that it was somewhere that the gargantuan predator could see me clearly as I ran, and get a clear shot with its flamer.

It was too late to change my mind—my legs had already carried me out into the open—but in trying belatedly to alter the direction of my charge I turned my ankle, and fell, rolling as I did so to look back at the thing which was looming far above me, its head seeming tiny now because it was so high, its legs lashing out in search of purchase so that it could anchor itself for one final, fatal grab.

I saw its swiveling head rotate and stop, so that two good eyes stared down at me, and I saw the barrel of the proboscis come into line as the arms pulled back, ready to thrust.