Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction Part 16

-To love, she asked.

He looked at Diamid. "We love without its wanting. It is in the blood of our blood. Ferocious and beautiful."

He diffused hexa.n.a.l into the air.

-To kill.

"To kill? To kill is to feed. To feed is to survive. Always, at the edge of death, is the edge of life." His own daughter fluttered within his heart, and he turned from Cleave, seeking refuge beside Opnay at the cavern's entrance. Opnay had not closed his mouth for many days.

"Do you not weary of your vigilance, my brother?" he asked.

"No more so than you must of your burden," Opnay said.

"Then you are weary indeed." Rilk curled closer, though he was careful not to touch Opnay.

Opnay closed his mouth and sighed. "The birthing will begin soon. The father-brothers are anxious. Their fear stains the air throughout the many caves."

Opnay rose and startled Rilk by briefly touching his muzzle to Rilk's chest. Then he resettled in the cave's entrance and re-opened his mouth.

Rilk paced between the cave entrance and basin as Fen whimpered. Frequently, he paused beside Opnay. The daughters were emerging. Until they launched, they were vulnerable to the killer, and thethrumming of their wings attracted the searchers.

Finally, Rilk settled beside Diamid, turning round and round to trample the moss before settling uncomfortably, trying to cradle his distended chest. By the time he'd snorted, Cleave had detached her pharynx from her father and crawled to him. She rolled the juices from her gland. -story.

Rilk purred.

Cleave crawled nearer still, now resting her head against Rilk's flank, her wings throbbing so that the hairs about his sensuous mouth stirred in their breeze. From his deepest places came the hum of his affection. He adjusted himself in the moss so that his body curled protectively toward her.

"It came to pa.s.s that Oh-ten discovered Moe-ma's desperate hive, and within its recesses saw a brother take a child to his heart. And she saw, too, that if one of her own infants were carried thus, it might survive the killer."

Cleave shuddered, and Rilk soothed her beautiful wings.

She rolled the juices from her gland and gave them to him. -Why kill?

"Why does the killer hunt the daughters of Oh-Ten and no other upon Deydey? We don't know, little one."

Opnay closed his mouth and turned from the cave entrance to watch.

Cleave pushed herself to her emerald legs and extended her spurs. In a show of baby fierceness, she sharpened her little claws on the rock beneath the soft lichen. Again she rolled her juices.

"What does she say?"

Rilk hummed. "She says she does not fear the killer."

"She is as fierce as the first Queen," Opnay hummed with amus.e.m.e.nt. His third eye-lid retracted and his vulnerable, exposed eyes reflected the lichen's glow. His affection was so unreserved that Rilk purred.

Fen, who'd slept fitfully during the story, suddenly bolted upright and howled.

Opnay snorted with disdain and closed his eyelids.

"Fen, you've dreamed poorly-"

Click, click, whir.

Fear closed Rilk's throat. He turned to the cavern's entrance. A dull, oppressive pain tightened his chest.

His daughter twisted within his heart as the searcher tasted the air. Its clicking escalated as it homed in on Cleave.

The searcher lunged, and Opnay rose before it, his body trembling with rage. He roared, the sharp points of his teeth snapping. Effortlessly, it knocked him aside. He hit the cave wall-chest first-and crumpled to the ground.

Diamid tried to hide Cleave as the searcher's serrated blades extended.

A terrible knell broke from Rilk's throat as the searcher sliced into Diamid, severing muscle from bone.

Cleave screamed, butyloctenal souring the air. There was no hesitation on her part. She rushed forward,her baby spurs extending into hooks. Instinctively, she flexed the skin along her forearms and leaned forward to catch and focus the sun's light in the sun-scales along their curve.

They were useless underground, but Rilk sensed that, even so, something wasn't right with the way her arms reflected light.

The searcher was upon her, and they clashed, blade upon spur and claw upon hook. Her wings clapped together and swept apart. Rilk roared and she broke, speeding toward the basin, and then into the channel from which thefather's comfort flowed.

Click, click, whir. The searcher accelerated into the channel.

"Go to her!" Fen shouted. "I will care for our brothers as best I can."

Rilk leaped into the channel, skimming the surface of the sour water. As he followed the groove toward the mountain's heart, he realized that Cleave fled toward theblack petals . She tracked their scent into the darkness, down and down, deeper and deeper, toward the vents where the world burned.

Where Cleave led the searcher there was no light, only heat and steam and scalding water that rippled from the porous stone. As the super-heated water pa.s.sed through the giant, mineral-encrusted maws that lined the cracks, they keened like wind swept through a barren valley. Cleave raced toward them, the searcher at her heel. She sped so close to a maw that her filaments brushed against it before she veered.

It snapped closed, catching not Cleave, but the end of one of the searcher's extended blades. It smashed into rock, enveloped by scalding steam. The searcher wobbled momentarily, losing alt.i.tude before stabilizing near an open vent. Again it tasted the air:Click, click, whir .

Beneath it, theblack petals quietly unfurled like ma.s.sive folds of bruised skin. The plant s.h.i.+vered slightly as its stamens were exposed; and then, as the stamens parted, finger-long shards of obsidian teeth rose from its stigma. They dripped with digestive fluid. The petals expanded around the searcher, and quietly pulled it into itself.

Rilk loped through channels leading away from the birthing caves, climbing ever higher toward an exit little used by the brothers. Cleave s.h.i.+fted on his back as he moved, clinging to his pelt with her claws, her wings folded. He was disturbed. Something had been strange about her forearms when she'd exposed them to the searcher. He wasn't sure . . . then it occurred to him-she'd had no sun-scales. But why?

Was she too young? He didn't think so. All the daughters he'd seen had been born with intact scales.

Was it a flaw caused by her early birth? He shook his head to clear it. At the moment there were more pressing concerns. It wasn't safe to take her back to the den with searchers in the tunnels, but he wasn't certain that his decision to take her above ground was wise either. Still, with so many father-daughters within, he might-with luck-slip unnoticed from the mountain and into the s.h.i.+elding rocks near Oh-ten's outcrop with Cleave and his own daughter. He slowed as the lichen became patchy and then disappeared. The closer they came to the mountain's exit, the more easily the killer would sense her if it were nearby. The tunnel widened, brightened, and he suppressed the urge to flee back into darkness.

Cleave's wings began to thrum. Again she s.h.i.+fted.

Click, click, whir.

The sound came from behind. Rilk closed his flesh eyelids, lowered his head. As he bolted above ground, he felt Cleave release her grip on his pelt.

He could not see in the sudden dazzle of light, but he could smell, and what he smelled was alien and all around him. He felt a sudden sharp pain to his flank. He reared, staggered, and fell heavily.

* * *Rilk woke, opened one eyelid, and remained very still. He felt his heart's empty chamber, and grief pierced him so sharply that every fiber of his being ached.His dawnstar .

Nearby were two creatures-both standing on hind legs as if threatened. They were hairless like the killer itself and wrapped in loose, wrinkled skin. Their small eyes each had but one lid, and he sensed that they didn't see well. One creature lifted its foreleg: It made a soft whirring sound.

The light dimmed, and the creatures approached. One extended and c.o.c.ked its head in a way that reminded Rilk of Fen. Rilk was on the ground, in the corner of a room with unnaturally smooth walls. No visible barrier stood between him and the creatures, but he sensed that he was contained and could not reach them.

Their mouths opened and sounds emerged.Were they speaking to each other? To him?

The creature pointed its foreleg at Rilk, and he saw that the whirring came from something it held within its soft, blunt claws. He cringed, expecting pain, but no pain came.

"Kill the bad-time mother."

Rilk opened a second eyelid and sat up. A brother spoke, but the words made no sense. He peered at the whirring thing. It was shaped like a brother's paw.

"Where the water rock hot," it said.

In confusion, Rilk repeated, "Where the water rock hot? Water comes from the hot rocks?"

The creature pulled the paw closer to itself and pressed dull claws against its surface. Again it was pointed at Rilk.

"Water comes from the hot rocks," it repeated. Then, "Burrow deeply, brother?"

Again the creature drew the paw in and brushed its claws across it.

"Burrow deeply brother from the hot rocks. Wound hurt?"

Rilk clutched at his chest. "My heart is empty. You've taken its meat."

"The bad-time mother. The parasite."

"My dawnstar." Rilk closed his eyes.

Again the paw spoke. "Queen Strikker."

Rilk opened his eyes and the mother's image suddenly wavered before him. He saw her plainly, yet he could see the creaturesthrough her as well.

He didn't understand. Defiant, he roared: "The mother gives us daughters to take to our hearts!"

As if pleased, the creatures moved their heads rapidly. "Yes."

One of them waved its foreleg and a chrysalis welled up from the floor. It seemed far away-its size was no larger than an infant's spur. It drifted toward a s.h.i.+mmering rock, larger than many mountains, suspended in darkness, surrounded by stars. When the chrysalis was very close, it ignited and fell. Rilk felt himself falling and spread out his forelegs. Then, without warning, he was upon land, and the mother stepped from the chrysalis's scorched shards. There were many plants and trees, densely packed,br.i.m.m.i.n.g with flowers. Creatures beyond his imagining wandered the paths beneath. The queen unfurled her beautiful wings. There was no sign of the killer.

When it came time for her daughters, they were born without censor, and she cared for them. When their wings developed, they bound the animals between the hooks of their knees and ankles. He watched as the skin flexed from the curve of their arms to expose the sun-scales that caught the sunlight and ignited.

As they accelerated, the creatures bound between their knees and ankles burned.

New chrysalises moved through s.p.a.ce and fell to new Earths, and every Earth upon which they fell was drained of life.

The creature with the speaking paw showed him a mountain that moved among the stars. Inside were many creatures like itself. They searched for Oh-ten's children. When they came upon a chrysalis, the killer emerged from the mountain. It pursued the mother to Earth and hunted. Where the mother died, the Earth prospered; where she lived, it perished.

The creature pointed the speaking paw. "Earth is dead except the burrow deeply, brother. Help. Kill the bad-time mother gives us daughters to take to our hearts."

As the paw spoke, the sun that gives life to the many Earths appeared. Five chrysalises fell upon one Earth. Rilk whimpered when he saw the killer pursuing a mother over the heavy, black-bottomed water toward distant mountains. Their gloom grew ever larger before him. When he recognized the gnarled outcroppings of rock and wind-stunted trees that marked the entrance to the brothers' birthing caves, he howled.

Rilk estimated he'd been with the speaking-paw creatures two cycles when they finally released him in the valley, beneath the mountain's fissure. He lumbered toward his den with a saddened heart. He'd tried to tell them that the father lives for the daughter. That without the daughters of Oh-ten the brothers would not live many generations, but their paw didn't understand. "It is a brother's nature to burrow deeply," it said. "Burrow deeply, brother." Eventually, he'd given up.

He entered the mountain. He hadn't traveled long before he heard the thrumming of wings. He paused.

The sound built, echoing through the tunnels like a rising wave. He held his head very still. His chest felt as heavy as stone.

The daughters of Oh-ten swarmed toward him from the mountain's recesses. By the hundreds they surged forward, a jumbled blur of bellies still plump from father-food, of blue stripes and green wings beating so fast that Rilk's pelt-hair slicked back and the sensitive filaments around his mouth battered against his face. When they were upon him, he saw his withered brothers bound between their knees and ankles.

His heart hammered wildly. In the daughters' momentum and frenzy, they pushed him back along the tunnels, and when they burst into the open air their momentum carried him with them down the birth trails.

In the open, he shut his flesh eyelids against the light, but he felt the shudder that ran through the daughters as they began to rise-a single convulsion that rippled across the sky. Around him his brothers sighed amid their daughters' brilliant wings. As the skin flexed from the curve of muscular arms, and the sun-scales caught the light and ignited the father fuel, Rilk heard his brothers' whispering. Their words flowed out like thoughts from his head:love fast and well, brother. Time is the shameless hunter of the world. It is swift and merciless upon the back of love.

Wings alternately glided and flapped as the new queens settled into the br.i.m.m.i.n.g air currents. They accelerated, and the turbulent air washed over Rilk in a pungent wave that reeked of burning flesh, musk,fear-smell, and dirt. He skidded into a clump of trees, suddenly aware of a hundred different things: his heartbeat, the sun dappling through the bending everberry limbs, the en ma.s.se shudder of his brothers'

final breath, and something else . . . a rumbling from above.

More than a rumbling-the ground shook. The tree leaves shook and dust swirled up and stained his pelt. The daughters' musk took on the sharp tang of panic.

In the everberry's shade, Rilk opened his flesh eyelids and watched as the killer slid from the gloom of the mountain, its blunt face burning like a red sun. Fire flew from its long limbs. With each discharge the earth concussed and a daughter fell. A tree limb snapped-hitting Rilk on the back with a blow so stunning that it left him dazed upon the ground. A shroud of leaves settled over him.

He wasn't sure how long he'd lain there as the father-daughters fell. His head throbbed and ached. The killer circled, back and forth, back and forth, long-limbed and slow-a pale monster the color of lichen.

It took a long time before Rilk realized that the firing had stopped. He felt lost and unreal in the silence.

Eventually the killer left, lifting vertically so quickly that he was certain it intended to rejoin the speaking-paws' mountain that moved among the stars. The Earth settled into stillness. All the daughters of Oh-ten and all the brothers who had been his littermates were dead.

Time pa.s.sed and twilight fell. He became aware of movement at the periphery of his sight. He watched without interest until it resolved into shapes. The younger brothers, like Fen who'd been unbound, had ventured from the fissure to gather what remained of those they'd loved. Rilk blinked and then bellowed in shock.

A daughter rode the back of one brother.

At the sound of his cry the brother she clung to extended and turned his head in a way that suggested nervousness. Fen loped over the broken ground to his brother's side.

"Rilk! Beyond all hope. We did not think to see you again!"

Never had Rilk thought his heart would leap so at the sight of Fen! But who was the daughter he carried?

She climbed from Fen's pelt and offered Rilk her juices.

He felt agitated, and did not accept.

"Rilk," Fen said, gently. "Do you not recognize your brother's daughter?"

Cleave?Cleave was a baby. This daughter looked like a young queen. She would soon be ready for daughters of her own.