Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

"Got another piece of string?" she asked.

"No, sorry."

Upon the ocean, the contest continued to unfold. The humans piloting the tow-skimmers were not beaten yet. The two teams split up, veering toward the closing pincers of the blockade line. The lead island on the northern pincer rapidly broke off, its Ferals throwing sail-leaves aback, heeling the island around to avoid the roaring, rapidly approaching the plume of green flame and, in the process, forcing the islands following it to break off also. The lead island on the southern pincer was a different story, however. It was closing fast with Tlalok's island and its Ferals had no intention of veering off from their target. The quadrupeds strobed with displeasure as a fire-skrag was towed into their path. Orders crackled across the island's bulk and the living mass took evasive measures, first tacking one way and then, abruptly, another, but the skimmers pulling the skrag made a course correction for every action the Ferals took. The skimmers were barely strong enough to pull the skrag; they could move no faster than the Feral island, but the skimmers could turn in any direction they needed to, unlike the Ferals who were restricted by the direction of the wind.

The Feral island, the skimmers, the fire-skrag, and Tlalok's island formed a short, straight line. From Jenette's point of view, the roaring green plume from the skrag made it hard to see the skimmers and the Feral island. Fluctuations in the wind brought the stinging smell of incendiary fuel to her nostrils.

Pulse-cannons along the shore of Tlalok's island hummed as Guards powered the killing machines up in anticipation of combat.

Who, Jenette wondered, would blink first?

Jenette glanced back at Karr. He was winding the microfiber string so tightly around his finger that the tip was turning purple.

Kthulah's Ferals blinked first. Strong instincts to nurture and protect the islands that they lived upon spurred the Ferals into action. Hordes of the glowing aliens, who had bunched up along the island's shoreline, scattered. Light blurs swirled along sailtree limbs and organic sail-leaves abruptly changed angles as the Khafra tried to swerve away from the fire-skrag.

"Too late," Jenette whispered.

Through the billowing green skrag flame, Jenette saw tiny human forms move in the skimmers. The sound of turbines changed as the skrag was cast off. Plumes of water curved out into clear view as the nimble vessels darted out from between the imminent collision of the Feral island and the fire-skrag. The fire-skrag plowed on, losing headway, but still headed toward the Feral island. The aliens attempted a sharper turn. Overstrained sailleaves tore free and fluttered off into blood-red night, like flocks of startled flying creatures.

The flaming skrag struck, spinning down the side of the Feral island, leaving trails of green napalm wherever contact was made. Stress faults shot through the skrag and it broke up, fragments spreading across the ocean like a burning minefield. Feral islands down the line veered off in panic. The second

island in line snagged against the third, the fourth, and fifth islands, unable to spill speed from their sails in time, plowed into them. Ghutzu tore, sailtrees toppled, distant Ferals screamed.

The high slopes of Gnosis provided a clear view. The outer blockade line was breached. The inner line was in disarray. The island full of blank-ones and treacherous Pact was winding its way through flaming green island fragments while the blank-one water machines joined together and began to pull the remaining fire-skrag toward Gnosis. The blank-ones intended to impede any last-ditch attempts by Kthulah to cut their island off. It was a wasted effort. The island of Gnosis moved ponderously, with the dignity of its weight and the Wisdom of its Roots. Before it could so much as turn around, the intruders would make good their escape.

In the time

Of the Burning Heart of Night

Perhaps even the most profane

Is sacred, the Judges offered, penitent gray forms with their single cobalt glowbuds shining between black eye orbs.

Kthulah's muzzle pinched with concern. Kthulah can make no sense of it.

The Burning Heart

Needs not

To be comprehended

Only preserved, the Judges said in unison.

Yet the number of Radiances is not four Kthulah said spreading the four thumbs on his paw. And Pact do not know how to set the count right.

It Is true

The Roots of Wisdom

Have forgotten, the Judges admitted sadly. Their heads tilted, pondering all sides of the Balance.

Perhaps,

The blank-one Jenette

Was

Correct the Judges wondered.

Perhaps

There was

Only losing and dying

In fighting.

No, Kthulah said, saddened by the loss of so many of his brave Pact. There was honor, too. No savages can say that on this night, the Pack of Gnosis did not defend the Prophecy.

But

What

Of that

Prophecy? the Judges flashed, trying unsuccessfully to make sense of their tallies of black and white beads.

A

Decision

Must be

Made.

Kthulah felt the aches of all the many decisions he had made in the course of his allotted years. It never seemed to end. Kthulah wished the Judges would accept his answer of silence. They did not. They shook their bead-laden staves at him, unsatisfied.

Soon, Kthulah said, Soon.

LI

All is not as is seems.

Expect the unexpected.

Don't be afraid of a little pain.

? Reflections of a Fugueship Pilot. Lindal Karr

Snap. Secure the backup line to a kilnsuit pintle. Click-clack. Insert new cartridges into the Gattler.

Rrrrrrzzzk-chuk. Lock fish-bowl helmet into position.

The null-fusion reactor lay on its side, looming behind Karr, Dr. Bigelow, and Tlalok; the cavity surrounding the gunmetal hourglass was lit only by a soft purple glow from its perfectly tuned null-field.

Karr was in his kilnsuit, suspended over a deep well shaft that connected the insulated cavity to the ocean depths beneath Tlalok's island. Filament lines ran up from carabiners on Karr's chest to a pulley at the apex of a tripod rig that squatted over the shaft. The lines then ran down to a winch unit. Both that winch and the null-fusion reactor were connected to a timing device. Red digital numerals on its face were counting down.

Seventeen minutes, forty-nine seconds to go.

At one minute to go, the winch would begin spooling out filament. Karr would drop down through the ghutzu shaft and into the water where Long Reach lay. At zero minutes, zero seconds, the null-fusion reactor itself would overload, at which point it would not be a good idea to be a living organism anywhere in its vicinity.

None of the three sentients in the cavity spoke much. Dr. Bigelow was scurrying around the reactor doing last minute triplechecks of null-nodes and detonator cabling. Tlalok sat beside the timing counter, watching it and the humans most distrustfully.

Jenette stood on the trailing shore of Tlalok's island. Sailtrees and the reactor mound stood out in stark silhouette against the fugueship fires. At a distance of two kiloyards out, the four smaller pillars of hydrogen flame, rotating slowly around a massive central pillar, blotted out half the sky. Jenette felt as though she were inside a blast furnace. Searing convection currents hammered at her back, sucking leaves and other loose debris over the ground and ocean and pulling Tlalok's island faster and faster toward its doom; roaring flames thundered in her ears, making thinking hard and talking all but impossible.

Jenette cupped her hands over her comset pickup and yelled, "Pilot Karr, what is your status?"

"Physical preparations are complete," Karr's voice buzzed back. "Dr. Bigelow is taking his last looks as we speak."