Филип Фармер - The Stone God Awakens

Ulysses, even on the lower deck of the gondola, could hear the screams of the bat-men and the trumpetings of the Neshgai. And then, on his right, the darkness became an eye-searing flame as a dirigible exploded. Fire wrapped it around within two seconds, and the airship began to fall at once. A few figures leaped from it, mostly humans and one large Neshgai figure from the control gondola. The majority of the winged men aboard had been caught inside the fuselage. Nobody would ever know what had happened. Perhaps the Dhulhulikh had set off a rocket or lit a match too close to a hydrogen leak.

Or, more likely, the captain, realising his ship was doomed, had set fire to it, incinerating several hundred Dhulhulikh along with himself and his crew.

Ulysses had groaned when he saw the ship burst into flames. Now he yelled, because the other ship was headed toward the falling craft. If it did not quickly turn, it would ram broadside into the other or be caught on its nose by the burning craft.

"Turn, you fool!" he yelled. "Turn!"

But the airship proceeded in a stately manner toward a fiery collision.

A moment later, hundreds of bodies left it. They poured out of the cockpits, the domes and the holes that had been torn in the skin by bat-men who had struck it. They fell with wings half-folded and then, out of harm's way, spread their wings out.

As the Dhulhulikh left, and the weight passed, the ship lifted and quickly was above the flaming wreck. Ulysses smiled, realising that the captain had deliberately set his ship on a collision course. He and his crew would all be killed anyway by the Dhulhulikh, so he had tried to ram the other ship. But he had not really wished to do so. He must have been hoping for just what did happen. The terrified bat-men had deserted the ship and so allowed him to escape.

TheBlue Spirit, however, was in grave danger. It was so burdened down that it could rise no higher. And the Neshgai, though they might be waging a Homeric battle, would inevitably be overcome by sheer numbers. They had been able to keep fighting so far only because the pygmies were not carrying bows and poisoned arrows. Within a few minutes, the survivors would be charging down the ladder again.

Ulysses said to the helmsman, "Tie the wheel down. But keep the motors turned vertically. And then fall in with the others."

The helmsman did not ask why he should leave his post. But he was aware that every man was needed.

Ulysses, standing on the upper deck, his feet soaked in the blood of Dhulhulikh, counted his "men." He had three Wufea, two Wagarondit and one Alkunquib. One of the Wufea was Awina, but she would be a deadly fighter against the tiny bat-men. These were all that were left of the two hundred who had set out with him to enter The Tree on its northern side. And he had six Vroomaw "humans."

"We have one chance," he said. "Kill or drive out every Dhulhulikh. Follow me!"

He went up the steps with a flint-tipped club in one hand and the other on the guide rail of the ladder to keep from slipping in the blood. He wore his full armour still, and the light on top of his helmet was on. But this was for emergency only, because he had turned the lights back on when the Neshgai charged into the fuselage.

No one opposed him at first. The Dhulhulikh were too concentrated on the Neshgai even to see him. They swarmed about the sole Neshgai on his feet, hopping on the main walkway before and in back of him and fluttering down from girders to lash out at the giant as they went by. The way was strewn with mangled corpses, and on both sides torn and crushed bodies lay on the skin.

Ulysses ran as swiftly as he dared, stepping over the bodies, until he got to the fight. He smashed in three skulls and broke the bones of two pairs of wings before the little men even knew that help had come for Graushpaz. The Neshgai, trumpeting, summoned new strength to smash out anew. His quilted armour and plastic faceplate were splashed with blood, some of which was his own. His trunk had been deeply gashed near the tip, and two-thirds of a short spear stuck out of his back. Some bat-man had dived down from a catwalk near the top of the ship and driven the spear through the armour and halfway into his body.

There were about forty Dhulhulikh still able to fight. They came down on the ten newcomers with maniacal fury, losing many but stabbing all ten. A Wufea, two Wagarondit and three Vroonmaw were dead within sixty seconds. But Graushpaz, relieved of the full onslaught, cracked three heads with one sweep of his axe, reached out and grabbed a wingtip with one bloody hand and tore the wing off, sending the shrieking little man off the catwalk. He wheeled, and trumpeting wildly, charged those around the newcomers. His flailing axe crushed two more and he plucked a winged man off Ulysses' back and squeezed once, crushing the windpipe.

Suddenly, the survivors had run off toward the holes in the skin. They had had enough. But before they reached the holes, they stopped. And then they turned around with a wild exultant cry. Fresh Dhulhulikh were coming in through the holes.

Graushpaz screamed, "Dump the bodies off! Get the ship up where they can't reach us!"

He brushed by them on the walkway, almost knocking them off. He bent over, groaning with the pain of the spear in his back, and rolled the great bodies of his friends off the walkway. The dirigible's skin broke wherever the corpses fell through. More air whistled through the breaks but that did not matter. Air was whistling through a hundred holes.

Ulysses shouted at the others to throw the rest of the bodies off. They lifted up their dead comrades and dropped them over the rail, and then began on the bat-men. The reinforcements had continued to come in through the holes, but these were not the overwhelming number he had expected. There were about fifty. Added to those who had been here, sixty in all. Enough, however, to kill the thirteen survivors a dozen times over.

He ran down the walkway until he was past the hatch that led to the control gondola. He went to his right on a walkway to a defence station, and here he looked for a bomb. He planned on lighting the fuse and standing by a gas cell. The bat-men would see what he meant; they would understand his gestures. Either they got off or he threw the bomb against the cell, and they would all die instantly. Perhaps they were fanatical enough to let him do it, but he had only this one chance. Either way, if he threw the bomb, or if he refused to throw it at the last second, he and his men were doomed. But the bat-men just might be frightened enough to take off.

There were no bombs or rockets. They had all been expended.

That was just as well. Otherwise, some bat-men would have taken one, lit it, and all the attackers would have flown away before the dirigible went up in flames.

Ulysses whirled around and ran back on the walkway until he came to a girder. He leaped upon this and climbed up it until he stood on the framework at the base of a towering gas cell. He shouted until every one's head was turned toward him, and he slashed the cloth bag with his switchblade knife.

The rent was a tiny one. Hydrogen shrilled out of it and blew over his head. He stepped back and then pulled a box of matches out of his pocket. He held it up so all could see what he had, and he made motions of striking it. He hoped that the bat-men knew what matches were. Otherwise, his gesture was meaningless.

There was a horrified cry from the winged men and his own people alike.

He yelled, "Dhulhulikh, leave this ship at once! Or I kill all of us! Now! You will burn like moths in a cooking fire!"

There was a crash. Graushpaz had fallen over the guard rail of the walkway and toppled onto the skin below. His body crashed through the paper-thin shell and was gone. He had paid his debt; he knew he had only a few minutes of life; he had jumped to give the ship more lift.