Howard Waldrop: Scientifiction

“We call it the crumbly black stuff,” said Doer Tola.

“That’s it. That crumbly black stuff! You got to pile it on real good, all around, all over the dull grey metal slab. Before you put the slab on, too. Otherwise it’ll come back, sure as shootin’!”

“You’re positive about that?”

“You think I spent who knows how long shovelin’ that stuff into the Sparky not to know what I’m talkin’ about?”

“We always assumed that crumbly black stuff was just an indicator you’d find Fuel there.”

“You’re the Doer! You tell me! ” said Grandfather Bugg. The air was filled with irritation and the Old Smell. “I just know it works. Somebody back then was smart enough to figger it out. Don’t y’all talk to each other?”

“Not as such,” said Doer Tola. “I don’t guess it could hurt. Thank you. Time is of the essence. Lala?”

“Shortly,” she said. The Doer left.

Grandfather Bugg fidgeted, annoyed.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you. I have been busy, both working and guarding, whatever needs done.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Grandfather Bugg. “They was a time people came to see me when they didn’t need me, on a sudden. Like you used to.”

“I thought you could tell us a lot.”

“Evidently, I can.”

“No, not just this. I know you’re not that old, but you used to say it used to be all different. That we probably came from the Cold World.”

“Well, maybe we did, and maybe we didn’t. I never was sure. I know that they was a time though, when guys like me was needed and respected (not that I ever was, but my great-great-great-great Grandfather Bugg still did it). They was a time when I would have been needed, I coulda help make you ten thousand sisters, and they would of all been you? ”

“How was that possible?”

“I don’t know. Never did. That’s what my great-great-great-great Grandfather Bugg told me. ”

“I should go now,” said Lala.

“Don’t forget. I want to see that Sparky, and soon. ’Fore it burns us all up!”

“I’ll send some people for you.”

“Excrete!” he said. “One or two’s enough.”

“All right.”

“You do that,” he said. He looked her up and down. “Anybody tell you you got a fine young shape, from what I can tell in the below-red?”

“Oh Grandfather Bugg!” she said. She left.

Then they began to work, and they worked and worked and worked.

They had to move everything out behind the Settlement near the Sparky’s raging lights—everything from the workshops and the mines. They beat out two great sheets of dull gray Miner’s suit-metal, the size Doer Sima indicated they would need. Sometimes Lala helped the workers and miners at the hammers, sometimes she ran lichen up to everybody from the farms down below, sometimes she stood guard.

The lights of the Sparky had at first kept the Pack-roaches away, then had drawn them near, but not too near. So the guard-watch had to be sharp, both on the Settlement and the workers out behind it.

The Sparky’s flames went higher, it was more violent in the above-purple, so bright they disappeared into the higher-vision halfway up the column. Great long twisting flares roiled through it. The ground itself began to heat up, burning at the base of the Sparky. It grew larger, and they had to beat the sheets out to cover more area.

Others brought up heaps of the crumbly black stuff, piling it higher and higher, as close to the Sparky as was deemed safe.

The heat grew. The whole Settlement was bathed in glowing light; huge moving shadows of the workers and miners danced on its walls as they came and went.

At last they were ready. Some workers had been detailed to build a ramped incline toward the Sparky. They, and everyone who had to work out there, had been fitted with Fuel-miners’ suits, or simpler ones. They cut down on the heat from the Sparky but they were clumsy; body heat soon made the insides clammy. The eyepieces fogged constantly.

The ones working on the ramp could only do it for a very short time before having to rest. But the ramp extended closer, higher, so the first plate could be pushed on its way. They had to stop, finally. The heat, sparks, and light were overpowering up that close.

The whole Settlement was readied, suits all around, even for the guards. They brought Grandfather Bugg, in a chair, to the top of the highest part of the Settlement, so he could watch.

They lined up the first great plate on the ramp.

The Leader stood in her Fuel-miner’s suit along with the rest.

Doer Sima signaled. A long line of workers threw boulders of the crumbly black stuff from one to another, the last two throwing them toward the sputtering blaze of the Sparky.

There were mostly Fuel-miners on the front edge of the great dull grey slab. Lala found herself on the front corner nearest the Sparky.

It roared above them. She was walking backward, feeling the heat and light on the back of her Miner’s suit; she watched its reflection stretching up behind her in the dull grey slab, the fanned flaming light blotting out stars and sky, everything but itself.

Then someone stumbled, two fell on the far back end. The slab jerked from her grip as the front line of Miners ran to the sides. The metal edge came back forward, hit her. She tripped, swung around, lost footing on the edge of the ramp, scrambled, and as she came up, the slab swung into her again, and she fell twisting backward. And fell headfirst into the Sparky.

There was an intense instant of light and pain. A spark bigger than her head went through her.

Still she fell, long after she should have hit the ground and been killed. Then the air crushed down on her, forcing itself into her spiracles.

Bright. Too bright. That color between yellow and blue. Too blue, too.

Lala hit the soft yielding ground. Green. That was the color. The ground was green, covered with something soft.

Shapes. Shapes all around.

Thick thick air. Smells and tastes came to her antennules in a haze she could not distinguish. She was stunned in all her sense, wondered why she was not burning.

The sky was blue. The sun was not where it should be. It was high in the sky, off to the upper right. It was a full round circle. It was far too small and very very bright.

She balanced on her wobbly legs. She turned her head and the helmet of the Fuel-miner’s suit.

Far up behind her in the air was a flicker, a shimmer where the Sparky must be, from where she’d fallen. But it was barely there. As she watched a long spark appeared, came out, but it moved slowly, as slowly as she could walk, and went up into the air.

It was as she turned to follow its path that she saw another thing.

There was a thing coming through the air. It was like a slim roach, only black and yellow, it had clear things above its back that went up and down in a pattern—up bend down bend up bend down bend. It came toward her much more slowly even than the spark had moved. She could see the shimmer from the small bright sun on the clear things on its back. She could see it looking at her.

It was so small.

She saw that there were other larger things, beyond the thing with clear things on its back that hung in the air before her.

The air was too thick, the sky too blue, the ground a green blur. It was all too sudden, too overpowering. She began to fall to her leg-joints, saw the green ground coming up toward her.

Those other large things had been moving, moving all the time, very very slowly. Her depth perception was not working right, with all the colors. They must be ten or twelve times as large as she. Larger than anything living should be.