The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [45]
Not yet, at least.
He smashed the broken ambassador again as it tried to lurch away. Sparks sprayed from a crack in its back. He hit the device one more time, a mighty two-handed wallop that smashed its carapace, and again, until the ambassador stopped twitching and lay in shattered fragments.
“Galls upon you,” he panted. “Galls!” A spring popped up from the wreck: the trajectory took the spring over the side of his nest and down, beyond the clouds, out of sight.
Pan Renik’s breath came in ragged gulps. He tightened his grip on the mace.
Then a distant rumbling, as if of thunder, emanated from the firmament, building slowly. Pan Renik only saw the calm blue expanse of the morning, stained along the east cloudline with brighter light.
But something was coming.
Faster than his eyes could follow, the ambassadors vanished.
All of them.
Something was coming—
Scrambling over to where the dead woman lay, Pan Renik madly searched the black outfit. There were strange seams, confounding him, a variety of studs, clasps, all foreign to his clumsy fingers. Several openings parted easily, others he tore, but he managed to completely strip the sap-covered corpse.
Naked, the woman seemed less alien. Smaller, somehow. He tried not to wonder what her laugh might have sounded like. He tried not to think about lying with her, like a padre, and how her body might have felt against his, if it were not cold and hardening.
The rumbling from heaven continued to build.
He saw, next to the woman—so black it looked like a hole in his nest—an object the size and shape of his forearm. He thought of starless nights. Hesitating, stooping, his fingers almost touched the object, but not quite, because a faint voice started to whisper in his mind.
But there were no living ambassadors around.
He grabbed the treasure, which must have rolled free of the outfit, grunting as his hand closed over a surface so smooth and cold against his skin he thought he’d been seared. When he lifted and cradled it, the whispering grew louder and louder, and he wanted to throw the thing away but literally could not. Voices reached a crescendo in his head, then just the sound of wind.
He pushed the object back inside the suit, then put his own limbs into the sleeves, under the straps. He fastened clasps he had previously undone. He pulled material tight over his body. Pan Renik had no way of knowing if he had put the bizarre costume on in the correct fashion but he could not wait, not for anything. Not anymore. Waiting was over.
Sounds from above made the thin branches quaver.
Metal rods that the woman had died for extended out either side of Pan Renik’s body, trapping gusts of wind. Strung between the rods, the black blanket stretched, filling, pushing him forward. He looked like a glider. He looked like a gall-licking glider. He hooted and tried to make a rude gesture in the direction of the settlement but his movements were hampered. The rods were lighter than Pan Renik had expected. He braced himself on his haunches, shrugging, even dancing a bit, and discovered that he could unlock the frame; pressure from the wind suddenly decreased; he was able to fold his arms.
The broken mask, streaked with the dead woman’s sap—and by drips of his own—covered Pan Renik’s eyes, mouth, and nose.
And here they came! A mass of ambassadors, approaching directly from the sun. More than he had ever seen before: a thousand, ten thousand. Behind the myriads, some bigger shape shimmered into view. The intensity of light made him gasp. Around the form, sky broke up into scales of light that made it difficult to focus. He saw a large torso with a fiery tail, and an elongated head, eyes dim with blindness.
Ambassadors were leading the sky power to him.
Massive hands grasped the air, tentatively, spread out to soar—
Anu was coming.
The end of the world. The end of everything. Looking down at the distant settlement, Pan Renik spat (but the spittle caught the wind and smeared his own cheek), shrieking, “Rotten galls! Aphids! Tumours!