Bill Broun - Night of the Animals

Under the shadow of the eagle, Kibali spoke to Mason, too, for he also had listened very hard to animals his whole life, and at last he could hear their words now, at least for this night.

Kibali said, “I say to you both, ‘ Gagoga maga medu .’ That is the life-phrase by which the survivors of today will know one another. I give it to you from the animal world. It’s the voice against the rushing-in of death. It means, ‘I want to live.’”

Then the gorilla, his eyesight dimming, his heart trilling to a stop, looked up at Astrid, who, in his eyes, seemed to be floating above him, and he said to her, in the stalwart gorilla tongue, “ Gagoga maga medu, Astrid. Live! Live , sweet messiah! You are almost past the Death. And you are the last holder of the Wonderments on Earth. You are the princess of the wild, the Otter Christ of England. You will save our country, and you will save our world. But the cost of avoiding pain and grief is annihilation, I assure you. Just as you cannot trap an animal and expect it to survive, you must not go back to Flōt. You must keep imagining the green world, and you must walk toward it — and we will be by your side, on the road of happy destiny. Help the stranger, in the zoo. That poor crazy man who thinks you’re his brother. He may or may not be your grandfather, Astrid. Why does it matter? The fact is, he can be.”

“I hear you,” said Astrid. A fresh set of king’s bulletins and orange-freqs eeped in her eyes, but she dismissed them all without reading.

“If I could only gouge out my eyes,” she seethed. “Bugger!”

The golden wings of the eagle covered them all like a feathery shield, kicking up a cloud of dust around the square, hiding the creatures under its wings — three Homo sapiens and the Gorilla gorilla —and keeping them safe. They were pulling together, Astrid saw, as though circling the proverbial wagons, but soon the Heaven’s Gaters would find them and drug them and force them into the soul-swallowing machine. They must leave or perish, she suspected.

Suleiman, unsurprised but heartbroken, felt sure now that he would not make it to any new country. These American immigration demons, as he decided to think of them, had them surrounded. The only dim hope he felt was the Shayk of Night.

Apparently immune to the Neuters’ silver stunners and to bullets and mob-hurled projectiles, the black leopard had grown frantic and exceedingly lethal, screaming in leopard language, ripping the pale demons to pieces like so many rotten white peaches.

Under the beating eagle’s feathers, Astrid felt herself kissing Kibali’s forehead as he lay there, struggling for breath.

“You wake up,” she said, her licorice-colored hair falling onto and tickling his face. “Wake up.” Such was the fantastical tenor of her swirling brain in second withdrawal, she had to wonder: was she really talking to a gorilla, or to herself. “Please!”

Kibali’s own last thought was of his dead mother, named Long Stander, the matriarch of his father’s troop in the verdant hills of eastern Congo. He saw leaves in her hair, felt her pulling him closer to her, there under the ayous trees. As he expired, he heard her singing her burly ape lullabies with a might beyond the human heart.

AND NOW THE EMBASSY’S “EAGLE” WAS PULLING Astrid deeper under its wings, and dragging Mason and Suleiman upward, too, as the Shayk of Night battled on in the square. Astrid felt herself rising into the sky, and she wondered if this journey, this spiriting away by an eagle, would finally— finally —be the end of second withdrawal.

Saved by an eagle. That’s how good fantasies always end, she mused darkly. Perfect.

But it wasn’t an eagle. The creature had doors, and the doors had sprung open, and human arms had emerged to yank her inside.

The “eagle,” it turned out, was merely another, larger frightcopter — a troop transport — with a very ill, grinning Dr. Bajwa piloting it. The good GP had come to rescue them from the square. He sat working the holo-controls with an expert’s ease and comfort, and a weekend pilot’s lavish joy.

In the cargo area of the frightcopter, the three unhelmeted, regular Red Watchmen who had lifted Astrid, Mason, and Suleiman into the copter were trying to help them into their seats.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” said Mason, drawing his neuralzinger from under his blazer, and rolling himself in front of Astrid and Suleiman like a giant, awkward jelly roll. He waved his pistol at the Watchmen, holding his arm out stiffly, but he was still lying prone.

“Hey, jeez, jeez, jeez,” one of the Watchman said. “Keep your hair on, mate. We’re awright.”

“It’s OK,” Bajwa assured everyone. “People, sit down. You are safe. Inspector, the Crown has. for now. seen the error of its ways. These gents — Jake, Nigel, and Lawson — they’re on our side. The Watch is fighting the cultists.”

“You can count on old ’Arry,” said the one named Nigel. “’E’ll get these suiciders. I hear that ’e’s even brung Æthelstan’s Bliss out for this do, yeah? That’s the noisy sort of mortar what toys with time? With those pink arms?”

“I’ve heard the. tales,” said Mason, slowly holstering his sidearm. “I thought you might be more of. those people.”

“The cultists?” asked the doctor. “It’s unprecedented. They’ve finally gone too far. Even the English republicans — and the Earl of Worcester! — have allied themselves, for now, with King Henry.”

“I can’t believe it,” Astrid said to the doctor. “But the Neuters want to destroy us all. It’s the animals they want most.”

“Erm, yes,” Dr. Bajwa said vaguely, as if not quite grasping what she meant but wanting to show politeness.

“The suicide cult,” said Mason. “They’re not human.”

“What?”

“He’s right,” said Suleiman. “I saw them. They all look exactly alike.”

The most senior-looking of the Watchmen, Lawson, abruptly turned to Astrid and said, in a stone-mouthed, sea-blasted West Country accent: “I’ve just had a new freq, miss. Incredible.” He blinked his eyes a few times, clearly reading his corneas carefully. “His Majesty ’Arry9, I’ve been asked to relate, says he’s sorry for any misunderstandings, m’om. And you needn’t warry about any re-class-ifi-cation. And we’re getting hope for yar mum with her Bruta7, ar-right? You’ll not need to warry about the P-Levs, either. Right? Oh, and EquiPoise ’as been told their off yar case. And, erm. ” He paused for a moment, glancing above himself, and tapped his eyebrows a few times. He was reading off his corneas. He scratched his chin. “I think that’s it. M’om.”

“Well,” said Astrid. “Thank bloody God.” Out the window, she could see the great white quarkbeam sizzling across the sky. Despite the light pollution, the comet Urga-Rampos wasn’t actually any harder to see. Indeed, it was now luridly luminous, as if it had lowered itself toward Earth.

“Thank His Highness,” said Nigel, who sounded more local — perhaps from south London.

“Whatever,” said Mason.

“We need to hurry,” said Astrid. “The longer the beam runs, the more species we lose — forever. To the zoo!”

“I’m one step ahead of you,” said the doctor. “Just two minutes, and we’ll be above the lions.”

“But the beam, it’s a kind of energy weapon,” said the local Watchman. “What do you mean, ‘species’?”

“Animals,” said Astrid.

At this, Dr. Bajwa turned around from his holo-controls and looked at Astrid quizzically.