Beyond Infinity (34 page)

Seeker’s calm exasperated Cley. “Yeah, but what’ll we
do
?”

“Come.”

Seeker launched herself away, paws spread wide. Cley followed. The air was alive with cross-currents that plucked at her. Between bounces off trunks and bowers, Seeker curled up into a ball to minimize the pull of the howling gale. Cley copied this, narrowing her eyes against the rain of leaves and bark and twigs that raked her.

Seeker led her along a zigzag path. They bounced from bower to vine, just beneath the Leviathan’s skin. Over the whirling winds she heard the yelps and cries of animals. Nearby a yowling catlike creature lost its grip on a tubular root and pinwheeled away. A triangular mat with legs caromed off Seeker and ricocheted from Cley, spitting, before whirling into the madhouse mist.

They came twirling toward a system that looked like a blue-green heart, with veins and arteries stretching away in all directions. Fluids gushed here, fraying away into the thinning air. The wind moaned and gathered itself here with a promise of worse to come. The open wounds behind them were probably tearing further, she guessed, evacuating more and more of the Leviathan. For the first time it occurred to Cley that even this colossal creature could die, its fluids and air bled into space.

She hurried after Seeker. A gray cloud streamed by them, shredding, headed toward the sighing breezes. Cley recognized them—a flight of the thumb-sized flyers that had made up the captain, now streaming to defend its ship. There might even be more than one captain, she realized, or an entire crew of the anthology-beings. Or perhaps the distinction of individual entities was meaningless.

Ahead was a zone of gauzy, translucent surfaces lit by phosphorescent streaks. Seeker grabbed a sheet of the waxy stuff, sinking in her claws. The flapping sheet seemed to be a great membrane for catching pollen. Even in the chaos of drifting debris Cley could see that this was part of an enormous plant.

They were at the tip of a great pistil. Seeker was wrenching off a slab of its sticky walls, clawing energetically. Above this was a broad transparent dome, which brought sunlight streaming into the leathery bud of the plant. Its inner bulb had mirrored surfaces that reflected the intense sunlight into bright blades, sending illumination deep into the inner recesses of the Leviathan.

She took this in at a glance. Then Seeker yanked her into position on the bulb wall, where her feet caught in sticky goo. The wind lashed at her, but the goo held.

“We’re better out than in,” Seeker said.

“Huh? How…?”

Seeker barked orders, and Cley followed them. They fashioned the tough sheet into a pyramidal shape. Seeker stuck the edges together with the wall adhesive. She turned down the last side, leaving them inside the pyramid.

Cley got her bearings. They were drifting toward the transparent ceiling, moving on an eddy of the shrieking, building winds. Their pyramid smacked against the outer skin of the Leviathan.

Seeker crouched at an apex of the pyramid. She touched the ceiling and quickly twisted the wall. “Here—help…”

Cley grabbed a waxy fold and torqued it in the opposite direction. The Leviathan’s hide puckered and parted—and
pop!
—they passed through, into naked space. The pyramid drifted in the slight breeze of escaping gas from the pucker, which was closing like a quick smile behind them.

“We’re out!” Cley cried, delighted.

“This will last for only a while,” Seeker said.

“Till we run out of air?” Cley said.

“If that long.”

The advantage of living construction material was that it grew together, if encouraged by an adhesive, becoming tighter than any manufactured seal. One side of their pyramid was so thin, Cley could see out through it, yet the film held pressure. Nature loved the smooth and seamless. She and Seeker helped it along with spit—Seeker had a lot of faith in her own fluids—and some muscle work. Soon their pyramid held firm and snug.

They drifted away from the Leviathan. Cley hoped the skysharks would ignore them, and indeed the predators were nuzzling greedily at the raw wounds amidships. Around the Leviathan swam debris. Into this cloud came spaceborne life of every description. Some were smaller predators who scavenged on whatever the skysharks left. Others spread great gossamer sheets, eager to catch the air that poured forth from the Leviathan’s wounds. Small creatures billowed into great gas bags, fat with rare wealth. Limpets crawled eagerly along the crusty hide toward the rents. When they arrived, they caught streamers of fluid that spouted irregularly into the vacuum.

This was a riotous harvest for some. Cley could see joy in the excited darting of thin-shelled beetles who snatched at the tumbling fragments of once-glorious ferns. The wounds created fountains from the Leviathan’s skin. These geysers shot motley clouds of plant and animal life into a gathering crowd of eager consumers, their appetites quickened by the bounty of gushing air.

“Hope they don’t fancy our taste,” Cley said.

Her mouth was dry, and she had long since passed the point of fear. Now she simply watched. Gargantuan forces had a way of rendering her pensive, reflective. This trait had been more effective in the survival of Ur-humans, she had long suspected, than outright aggression or conspicuous gallantry. It did not fail her now. Visible fear would have attracted attention. They drifted among the myriad spaceborne forms, perhaps too strange a vessel to encourage ready attack—even hungry predators wisely select food they know.

“Do you think they could kill Leviathan?” Cley asked.

“Mountains do not fear ants,” Seeker answered.

“But they’re gutting it!”

“They cannot persist for long inside the mountain. For the spaceborne, air in plenty is a quick poison.”

“Oxygen?”

“It kindles the fires that animate us. Too much, and…”

Seeker pointed. Now curls of smoke trickled from the ragged wounds. The puffs of air had thinned, but they carried black streamers.

“The skysharks can forage inside until the air makes their innards burn.” Seeker watched the spectacle with scholarly interest, blinking owlishly.

“The sharks die, so that others can eat the Leviathan?”

“Apparently. Though I suspect this behavior has other purposes, as well.”

“All this pillaging? It’s awful.”

“Yes. Many have died. But not those for whom this raid was intended.”

“Who’s that?”

“Us.”

T
HEY WAITED OUT
the attack. Wispy shreds of smoke thinned as the Leviathan healed its internal ruptures, damming the torrent of air. The remaining skysharks glided with easy menace over the Leviathan’s skin but did not rip and gouge it. They ignored the periodic rings of plant life around the Leviathan’s middle. Apparently, these thick-skinned, ropy growths had developed poisons or other defenses. They were left in peace to spread their leathery leaves to the sun, oblivious to the assault on the Leviathan’s body.

The skysharks fed first on debris. Then Cley felt ominous, silent presences in her mind, like the sudden press of chilled glass on her face. She recoiled at the bitter sensation. “I…think I can…feel them.”

Seeker said, “Hate them.”

She could now capture some fragments and knew that they sensed Cley and Seeker’s presence. The sleek shapes began trembling with eager hunger. They milled about, drifting toward the pyramid. Their thoughts converged to a knot of menace. Cley looked out at them through the transparent film-wall. Their mouths gaped, showing spiky blue teeth.

“Hate them,” Seeker said again.

“You do?”

“No,
you
hate them. That will protect us.”

“I…”

“They have a rudimentary Talent.”

“But—”

“Now.”

She let go some of her bottled-in emotions, envisioning their energies as a sharp spear lanced directly at the nearest skyshark. This time she felt her transmission as a bright spark of virulent orange. The skyshark wriggled, turned, fled.

Seeker gave a malicious chuckle. “Good. You have a Talent, strong enough to be a weapon, as I suspected. Do that whenever one approaches.”

“Why doesn’t Leviathan keep them off this way?”

Seeker floated free of the wall, flexing her claws. “In their packs they have some defense. They can damp and defend against Leviathan thought patterns. But it taxes them greatly, for they are not very intelligent. When foraging among the helpless outgushed life, that defense mode is shut off.”

Already the skysharks were roaming farther from the Leviathan, catching up with creatures and plant shreds blown away. Their angular bodies bulged, bellies still throbbing with the struggles of their ingested banquets.

Fore and aft on the skyshark bodies, appendages unfolded from their warty hides. Parabolic antennae blossomed and scanned the volume around the Leviathan with patient, metronomic vigilance. Cley suspected there were species that preyed on these sleek hunters, too, though to look at these mean, moving appetites, she could not imagine how they could be vulnerable.

“So you think they’re after us?”

“They seldom assault a Leviathan; the losses are too heavy. Usually it is a tactic of desperation, when pickings elsewhere are lean.”

“Well, maybe it’s been a bad year.”

“Their bodies are not thinned by hunger. No, they were directed to do this.”

“By the Malign?”

“It must be.”

Cley felt an icy apprehension. “Then it knows where I am.”

“I suspect it is probing, trying whatever idea occurs.”

“It killed a lot of creatures, doing this.”

“It cares nothing for that.”

Their jury-rigged bubble was clouding with moisture. Cley rubbed the surface to see better, forgetting the skysharks. She was beginning to wonder how they could survive for long out here, Malign or no. And it was getting cold. Seeker seemed unbothered. She spread her hindquarters, assuming the hunched posture that meant she intended to excrete, and Cley said, “Seeker! Not now.”

“But I must.”

“Please. Look, we’re going to suffocate out here unless—”

Seeker farted loudly and shat a thin stream directly onto the nearest wall. Smiling daintily, she said, “Take a deep breath.”

Cley caught just a taint of the smell—and then her ears popped. Seeker’s excrement had eaten a small hole in their protection. Vacuum sucked the brown slime away.

Cley grabbed for the nearest wall as a gathering breeze plucked at her hair. Sudden fear darted through her, and she sucked in air greedily, finding it already thinner. The small hole screamed its banshee protest. The wind drew her toward the wall.

She struck it and rebounded in the sudden chill. Seeker’s fur abruptly filled her face, and she clutched a handful. She would have demanded an explanation, but that would have taken air. Seeker surged, carrying her along with muscular agility. Her ears felt as though daggers were thrust into her eardrums. Seeker dug claws into the walls, wedging the two of them into a corner. She struggled to see what was happening.

Their draining air made a thin, screaming rocket exhaust, thrusting them back toward the Leviathan. Seeker lurched around the pyramid, dragging Cley, to direct their temporary missile. Cley smacked into the walls, got disoriented, yelped for Seeker to stop. Seeker didn’t.

Whirling, they passed into the Leviathan’s shadow. She saw a raw wound in the skin nearby. A pale pink membrane slid out from its edges. The gouge looked like a majestically closing eye, hurt and red-rimmed. They were headed almost directly toward the slowly narrowing rent.

Seeker lunged away. This momentarily altered the direction of the jetting air. Then Seeker slammed against the far wall, and the jet swung again. This midcourse correction took them straight through the closing iris of the gouge.

They struck a large, soft fern and bounced among a confusing tangle of branches. The pink membrane sealed shut above them, puckering along the seam. Seeker extended razor-sharp claws and tore open the membrane, releasing them from its collapsing folds. They fumbled outward in an awkward parody of birth, comically mismatched twins.

Cley could hold her breath no longer. She exhaled, coughed, and sucked in thin but warm air. She breathed greedily. Just panting was a profound pleasure.

“How…how’d you do that?”

Around them small scurryings and slidings began. The Leviathan had already begun to secure and revive itself.

“A simple problem in dynamics.” Seeker yawned.

They lived for two days in the segmented chambers, snuggled into this zone of the Leviathan. Armies of small insectlike workers thronged everywhere, patching and pruning.

The pink membrane thickened just enough to keep in air securely but allowed in beams of sunlight, which hastened regrowth. Cley found food and rested, watching the crowds of hurrying workers. Through the transparent membrane she could see the spaceborne life outside, and at last understood their role.

Small crawler forms healed the torn skin with their sticky leavings. Others seemed to ferry materials from distant parts of the Leviathan to the many lacerations. Strange oblong creatures scooted in from distant places, trailing bags of fluids and large seeds.

She slowly caught the sense of the Leviathan, its interlocking mysteries. The carcass of a skyshark, gutted by its own internal fires, became food for the regrowth of myriad plants. The armies that distributed skyshark parts showed no malice or vindictive anger as they tore the body to shreds, sometimes stopping to eat a morsel. They were intent upon their labors, nothing more. Nature, she knew, could be cruel but not malicious.

Though much could be repaired, clearly the great world-creature was badly hurt. Long chasms yawned where skysharks had ruptured enclosed pressure zones, spilling moist wealth. Whole regions were gray with death. On the second day, the reek of bodies drove Cley and Seeker from the once-tranquil groves of ropy banyanlike trees.

But the true sign of the enormous damage came when Cley felt a slow, steady gravity pushing her toward the aft layers.

“We’re moving,” she said.