Ascending - James Alan Gardner [122]
This was the Cashling defense configuration I had seen in pictures. It may have been quite excellent for protecting vital organs under a thick arrangement of bones…but I did not think it clever to reduce oneself to a form that practically demanded other persons use you as a kickball.
Our Turn Next
All this time, the Shaddill ship had been snatching crusade vessels out of the sky. It did this with an extendible tube-stick, a big hose that reached toward one little craft after another and slowly sucked them in. None of the ships tried to flee or dodge the hose—the Cashlings on board must have been unconscious, everyone brought low by the blue-white flash.
Though I despised the Shaddill, I had to admit they built excellent weapons.
Each time a ship was captured, the mouth of the hose-stick squeezed shut for a few minutes. I suppose it took that long to swallow what had been eaten, to clear the stick’s mouth so it could gobble up more. In my imagination, I pictured a huge stomach inside the stick-ship, where little crusade craft bobbed listlessly amidst foul digestive juices. Well, I thought, I shall give those great poop-heads a tummy-ache to remember.
No sooner had those words passed through my mind than the great sucking hose turned its mouth toward us.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Uh-oh.”
Blacking Out Destiny
“We must now be very brave,” I announced to my comrades.
Festina lifted her head, saw the oncoming hose-stick, and staggered to her feet. She required a moment to steady herself once she became wholly upright; then she tottered her way to Lady Bell, who was still closed up tight in her basket configuration. “Hey,” my friend said, nudging the Cashling woman with her toe. “Open up.”
“Go away,” muttered a mouth in the lady’s back.
“No,” Festina said. “Not till you talk to your ship-soul.”
I told Festina, “It would be unwise for Unfettered Destiny to take evasive maneuvers. We would only give away that we were conscious.”
“I know; but we still have things to do.” Festina gave Bell another nudge with her toe…though perhaps it was less a nudge and more of a kick.
“Leave me alone!” the lady hissed…which is to say, a small number of her mouths spoke the words while the rest did the hissing.
Festina took no notice. “I won’t leave you alone till you do what I want. It’s in your best interests too. If they take you prisoner, you’ll never be seen again. Do you want to go down in history as the prophet who lost an entire crusade?”
Lady Bell made a barking wheeze. I suspect this was a rude word in the Cashling tongue. However, as Festina prepared to deliver a kick that showed every promise of being full strength, Bell said, “All right, all right.” An eye opened in the middle of her back. “What do you want?”
“Tell the ship-soul to opaque the hull. As thick as possible so we can’t see out.”
“Why?” Lady Bell asked sullenly.
“In case the Shaddill flash us again.”
“They’ve already flashed us once. What’s the point of a second shot?”
“Insurance,” Festina said. “If I were the Shaddill, I’d keep shooting the whole damned crusade every five minutes, just to avoid surprises. They haven’t done that, so maybe the weapon draws too much power to let them bang away indiscriminately. Even so, they might have a smaller version of the weapon inside, and they’ll zap us just before they board our ship.”
“You think blacking out the hull will protect us?” The lady’s voice sounded most sneerful. “I bet that beam isn’t real light at all—it’ll affect us even if we can’t see it.”
“You’re probably right,” Festina said. “But I’d feel stupid if we could save ourselves with simple measures and never bothered to try. Do it.”
Lady Bell muttered something in Cashlingese. I thought it might be an insolent retort, but it must have been a command to the ship; a moment later, the glass roof went completely black. “There,” Bell said. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” Festina replied.
I myself was not so cheered by the change—without the see-through ceiling, the recording studio felt confined and glowery. It did not help