Zenn Scarlett (27 page)

The emissary and Fane followed Hild up onto the catwalk, where the Kiran towered a good two feet over the head of the tallest human there.

“Now then,” Otha said. “Before we begin, are there any questions?”

“Yeah. I got one.” It was the quarry owner Pelik Shandin, one of the council members Zenn knew by name. He was a tall, burly, bear of a man in patched, goat-leather overalls. His sleeveless shirt exposed massive, densely tattooed arms. Tufts of his black beard protruded here and there from the surgical mask he wore. He pointed up at the sunkiller. “What’s that thing hangin’ underneath the beast?”

“It’s the gondola,” Otha said. “A training device the Kirans use to acclimate their sunkillers to having structures attached to them. It’s the first of many that will be added as they become full-grown adults.”

“So, you really trust these behemoths?” Pelik leaned forward on the catwalk railing to address the emissary. “You really live on top of them?”

“In times past, the surface of our world was a perilous place.” The Kiran spoke without a Transvox, her voice a breathy, lilting growl. “Over time, the sunkillers became our allies, and our sanctuaries. To this day we are pleased to live in union with them, in the safety of the skies.”

“Really?” Pelik said, eyeing the sunkiller. “Well that just sounds a tad risky, wouldn’t you say, Ren?”

“Not my idea of prime real estate,” Ren said, craning his head up at the sunkiller, then down at Otha. “Just don’t make me sorry for talking these folks into coming out here, alright Scarlett?”

“You won’t be sorry. You have my word.”

“You are fearful?” The Kiran emissary addressed them all, sounding almost hurt. “I assume that is why you wear the coverings.” She lifted a hand-like paw to indicate her own mouth. Zenn assumed Otha had handed out the surgical masks to sooth the anxiety of those towners who’d never been this close to an alien animal before. Apparently, Ren and Vic had been inside the walls frequently enough to know they didn’t need the protection.

“This fear arises because you are unfamiliar,” the emissary continued. “You know little of our sunkillers. Of our longstanding and beneficial relationship with them. There is no danger, I assure you. Here, I will demonstrate.”

She went down the stairs. Fane followed her, and they approached the gondola. Reaching up, she pulled a strap, releasing a rope ladder that unrolled down the gondola’s side. A moment later, she and Fane were standing on the woven-reed deck.

“As you see,” she gestured at the animal above her, which had taken no notice. “We are in no danger. This young sunkiller is well accustomed to the gondola and to our presence. Come, join me and see this for yourselves. She can easily bear all of you without difficulty. You are curious, surely. Come.” A nervous murmur rose from the council. No one moved. “Unless,” the Kiran continued, “your human fear overmasters your curiosity.” Fane allowed himself a grin at this.

It was too much for Pelik. He pushed his way past the others and stomped down the stairs. Zenn heard him mutter under his breath as he brushed by her: “No talking-dog off-wa calls Pel Shandin yellow.”

Zenn tugged at her uncle’s sleeve as the rest of council began to descend the stairs, following Pelik. “Otha,” she whispered. “Is this a good idea? To let them do this? Now?”

He bent down to speak quietly to her. “This is perfect. They’ll see a sunkiller up close, see it’s no threat. Wish I’d thought of it myself.” Then, in a louder voice, he said, “Novice, why don’t you go on up there and help everyone get aboard?”

A minute later, the council members and Ren had all joined Zenn in the gondola – all except Vic LeClerc, who remained on the catwalk.

“Vic?” Otha said, looking up at her. “You don’t get a chance like this every day.”

“I should hope not,” she said. “Really, Otha, it doesn’t look safe.”

“You afraid to be a few feet off the ground?”

“It’s not the ground that concerns me,” she said, looking at the sunkiller. “Are you certain it’s alright?”

“Seriously,” Otha turned to reassure the councilors, “I’ve worked hands-on with this animal for days now. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Vic stayed put.

“I’ll just watch. From here,” she said.

In the gondola, most of the council members stood gripping the side rails apprehensively as the structure swung gently beneath the sunkiller. The animal had come awake now, the two necks waving gracefully in front of it, heads bobbing to and fro in the air.

Fane came over to where Zenn stood at one of the deck railings.

“Greetings, novice,” he said, then turned to the group of councilors. “I hope your people understand what an honor this is, to be allowed so near the royals’ beast.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it,” Zenn told him. “But frankly, I just want to get on with the procedure.”

“The procedure?”

“I’m going to be removing the sutures.” She patted her tool belt.

“You?” He gave her a crooked, white-toothed smile, and leaned closer. “We must hope sunkillers are unlike yotes. Two heads would be worse than one, vomiting.”

“Very funny,” she said. She’d expected something like this from the boy, and he didn’t disappoint her.

“Alright then,” Otha said from his place below them on the infirmary floor, “Now that you’ve all had a good, close-up look, I think we’ll have you disembark so our novice can get to work. Time to take the bandages off and see if this little beauty is air-worthy again.”

This, Zenn knew, was a bit of showmanship. Otha would have already run a deep scan to make sure the tissues had fully healed before they removed the bandages and cut the sutures. It wouldn’t do for the royal emissary, or the town council, to see anything less than a successful result.

“Wait!” The harsh shout came from below. Zenn leaned over the gondola railing to see Liam rushing in through the infirmary door. When he saw Zenn and the council members, he sprinted toward the gondola, waving his hands. “No! You shouldn’t be up there!”

“What is it, boy?” Otha said, going to Liam, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“They need to get down.” He ducked away from Otha’s hand, ran to the gondola and pulled himself up the rope ladder, then bounded onto the deck, pushing past Fane.

“Zenn, get off, now!” Liam took hold of her arm and shoved her toward the ladder. “All of you, you have to get down.”

“Liam,” Vic shouted at her nephew. “Liam, you need to…”

A loud “crack” cut through the infirmary then and the gondola pitched violently, throwing everyone to one side. Something long and thin whipped past Zenn’s head as she held onto the railing to keep from falling. Amid the shouts of the crowd, another loud crack, and then another. Zenn realized what it was – the restraining cables had snapped. She looked over the edge of the railing, and saw the ground receding as the entire sixty-foot expanse of lighter-than-air sunkiller floated up, taking the gondola with it. They rose slowly at first, then faster, heading toward the infirmary ceiling. The sunkiller was fully alert now, the twin heads darting about on their lithe necks.

“Otha,” she yelled down. “Otha, what do I do?”

“Hold on,” he yelled back. “Everyone stay calm. I’ll get a line up to you.”

Something jolted the gondola hard, and there was the horrific sound of synthwood rafters splitting. The basket swung wildly back and forth, throwing several of the councilors, screaming, to their hands and knees. Now red clay roof tiles cascaded down to smash on the floor fifty feet below, and she saw Otha, Hild and Vic running to avoid the barrage. The sunkiller’s double cry filled the air with deafening screeches.

Then the light abruptly brightened. A fresh wind blew in Zenn’s face. They were outside, in the open air. They’d gone through the infirmary roof. They were floating up into the sky!

TWENTY-NINE

As the sunkiller rose through the air, its two heads called out again, the sounds echoing off the red cliff walls on either side of the compound. Below them, the buildings of the cloister shrank as the ground dropped away. The wind was blowing hard above the cloister, and it blew harder the higher they went.

The council members had drawn into a frightened knot in the very center of the cane-and-bone gondola, retreating as far from the outer edges as possible. The emissary stood near the bow. Ren detached himself from the huddled councilors and staggered to the stern, where Zenn, Fane and Liam clung to the hand railing.

“Scarlett!” the constable yelled to make himself heard above the wind. “We gotta get these people down, before somebody gets killed.”

“I can’t,” she told him.

“Whaddya mean you can’t?”

“I can’t control it.” she shouted at him, her throat tight, ready to cry, refusing to cry. This was the end of the cloister. Even if they somehow got back down to the ground, the council wouldn’t just vote against them. They would tear the place down with their bare hands.

“Listen, girl,” Ren put his face close to hers, jaw set, words squeezing out from between clenched teeth. “You get this damn thing to set us back down on the ground and you do it now.”

“I told you I can’t.” She pointed at Liam. “And it’s because of him!” She couldn’t keep the words from coming. She didn’t even try. “It was you! All of it. Everything that’s happened.”

Liam held up his hands, as if to ward off a blow.

“Scarlett, I didn’t do this.”

“Then why didn’t you come back? Last night?”

“It was Dokes. He was waiting for me at Vic’s. He jumped me. When I came to I was locked in the milking barn. It took me till this morning to get out.”

“What the…?” Ren yelled, cutting Liam off. “What the Nine Hells are you talking about?”

“Graad Dokes. He cut the cables,” Liam shouted.

“Right…” Ren muttered, looking from Liam to Zenn. “You two have obviously lost your damn minds.” He looked toward the bow. “You!” He shouted at the emissary, then staggered forward to talk to the Kiran.

“I’m telling the truth, Scarlett,” Liam said, gripping the railing next to her. “Graad said he was going to do something to the creature. Something the council would never forget. I came to warn you.”

“What?” Fane yelled, joining them. “This was done on purpose? Someone severed the sunkiller’s anchors?” He shouted into Liam’s face: “And you allowed this?”

“I’m not talking to you, off-wa,” Liam yelled at Fane, who showed no sign of backing off. “It was just to scare the council, when the sunkiller got loose,” Liam said to Zenn. “You weren’t all s’posed to get on this thing. I told her I wouldn’t do it.” He slammed his fists down on the rail. “I told her.”

“Told who?” Zenn said.

“Vic. She said we had to show the council. Show them the cloister had to go.”

“Vic? Why?”

He looked into her face, eyes anguished, and the words spilled out of him in a torrent.

“Vic said the valley was settled by her kin. Said the cloister land was hers by rights. She said the land was being wasted, that it shouldn’t be used to keep monsters alive. It was her idea that I make friends with Hamish, get him to trust me, so I could do the things I did...”

“And what about me? Getting
me
to trust you?” she shouted, thinking of Liam’s lips on hers, feeling something tearing loose inside her. “That was Vic’s idea too?”

“No, Scarlett… well, at first. But not later. Not after Zeus. You nearly made yourself sick to save him. I saw it then. All your animals matter as much to you as Zeus does to me. They deserve their chance, just like him. I know I was stupid not to see that. I see now.”

Zenn looked at Liam’s battered face, his matted hair, smelled his stupid alfalfa smell and… she’d had enough. She couldn’t take any more. She turned away, bit down hard to keep from crying, to keep from screaming, to keep from grabbing the towner boy by the neck and throwing him over the railing.

“Zenn. I know now Vic was wrong about you. About the cloister. About everything. But I waited too long to…”

“Scarlett.” Ren was yelling at her as he came toward them, pulling himself back along the railing with one hand. “That off-wa’s no damn help.” He slapped the pistol on his hip. “What if I kill the thing?”

“What? No!” Zenn shouted.

“Lives are at stake here.”

“It won’t help. It’s the gas in the wings. It’ll just keep floating up even if it’s dead.”

“What if I shoot the wings?”

“There are hundreds of gas bladders. Even if you could shoot them all, there isn’t time.”

One of the female council members pushed herself away from the group to speak.

“Why won’t this thing just… fly us down to the ground?” she said, her thin face pinched and pale with fear.

“It can’t fly down,” Zenn told her. “That’s what the operation was for, to help it control its flight.”

“But if it can’t go down, what’ll happen to us?” Pelik Shandin spoke from the center of the frightened group.

“Look.” The thin-faced woman was pointing out at the canyon wall. “We’re almost up to the pressure gradient.” She was right. They’d come up nearly level with the closest bary-gen. Just above it, Zenn could see the translucent layer of ionized air that stretched its protective barrier over the valley.

“We… we’re gonna go through the gradient,” Pelik shouted. “We’re all dead!”

Zenn wanted to yell at him to be quiet, to tell him he was just going to panic everyone. But he was right. Once the sunkiller penetrated the layer of pressurized air created by the bary-gens, they’d float up into the almost nonexistent Martian atmosphere.

“Kiran,” Ren yelled at the emissary, who’d made her way astern to stand near them. “If I killed it, would that work?”

“No.” Her turquoise eyes flashed angrily. “You must not. And it would not aid us if you did. The sunkiller would bring us down of her own will… if the healers have done as promised.” The emissary turned to Zenn. “Have you?”

“What’s she mean?” Ren shouted at her.

Of course. The answer was right there in front of them – or right above them. They still had a chance. A long shot, but a chance, if they acted in time. If she acted.

“The sutures,” Zenn shouted at Ren. “They’re still holding the plexus valve shut. If we cut the stitches, it’ll open the plexus and the sunkiller can control her buoyancy.”