Hull Zero Three

Scarlet-Brown, but this one seems to be female, or at least shaped differently. Then she passes below the light from the nearest hatch, and I look up to where she was and see, emerging from the outboard darkness—

More joy. An old friend—red claw. I reacquaint with what I first observed in distinctive parts—that claw, another like it, and more, half hidden; a quartet of crushing mouths set flat in a wide, dun-colored body. Tooth- edged reddish plates clack and scissor as at least a dozen spiky red arms reach out from the outer shell and grab and jerk inward whatever they touch—branches, bits of cable, the Scarlet-Brown’s missing leg still stuck in one grinding maw, the cloth-booted foot spinning round and round. It’s falling right toward me, maybe three blinks away, so I grab a cable through the pile of forest litter, tug myself left, and watch as the horror touches down, using claws and legs to cushion the fall with an unexpected, grim grace.

Grace is discarded as its limbs frantically shove aside debris, and the lifeless female. The mangled Scarlet- Brown is sucked away in the litter. The red horror spins about, claws raised, unable to gain traction in the litter’s shifting surface but obviously aimed in my direction.

Just me and it, everyone else out of sight. I hope they haven’t abandoned me, but how would that be any different from the sad histories of all my past selves, all my dead and frozen duplicates?

The horror pauses. Somehow finds a place to brace its limbs. Lifts itself out of the tangle and fragments.

A claw rises higher, swipes, and snicks, but only grazes my elbow, my hips.

Something even larger drops from the inboard volume of the forest ball. I can feel the mass of it but can’t make out details until it’s within the light. Large and sickly green, with red stripes and nested plates arranged every which way, each bearing more needle-sharp spikes. There’s an emerging theme. The Catalog, I think, is beginning to lack originality.

But I am wrong.

The new prodigy uncoils a long, thick ribbon. The ribbon twists and falls toward red claw, coiling and spiraling as if in a light breeze. Its tip flares and pushes out a pink pulp, aiming, spreading, and then attaching to the red back—the two nightmares are joined, as if one by itself weren’t bad enough.

Anchored, the ribbon whips in a jump-rope curve, shredding everything in its circuit. The whole assembly is less than four meters away, and the cable is about to cut me in half when Tsinoy leaps from the other side, lands on the red monster’s back, and grabs hold, paw-claws sucking down, burrowing. The Tracker’s muscles rearrange in a weird, snaky ballet.

Then it plunges its arms deep into the red shell, lifting, cracking, tearing, crushing. The whole scene terrifies me so deeply I’d rather be dead. I’m forced to look aside, where Big Yellow and the girl, her arms around his thick neck, bound along a clear stretch of curved wall, half pulling, half flying, carrying another body, yet another Knob-Crest, still alive but stunned, deep gouges and scratches around his face and neck, his clothing in tatters.

They leave the Knob-Crest in my care. Big Yellow also grimly plants the girl in my arms, where she squalls and squirms. “She smells one of her own,” he explains. “Keep her safe. I’ll get the others.” He looks admiringly at the Tracker, which has managed to sever the whipping cable and severely distract the combo—but not quite kill or cripple it.

The spidery woman passes in a gray blur of long arms and legs. “Where’s your goddamned laser savior?” she shouts.

Good question. I’ve got the girl in my arms, fighting like a hellion, and a Knob-Crest hanging on my feet and bobbing in the litter, hooting and groaning.

Something soft brushes my cheek. I snatch at it—a feathery strand that suddenly loops and stings my face and burns my fingers. The air is filling with more strands, all uncoiling from a leathery black mass oozing along the cables and draping from dead branches, scattering fragments of leaf dust. The mass is trimmed with a pale fringe of long, stinging tendrils, each tipped with a shining blue eye the size of a marble, all of which twitch and stare, directing the stripping, wrapping length behind.

At least five of those blue eyes turn on me.

That’s it. My legs pull up, hauling the Knob-Crest with them. I’m locked in a fetal curl, practically crushing the girl, rotating and falling to my left. The girl still clings to my waist. The Knob-Crest thinks better and drops loose, then flurries his arms and hands against more tendrils. Enough for all.

Still no saviors, no lasers. But the spidery woman is back. She’s pulled off her shoes and with her long black toes grasping a massive limb, swings a thorny branch like a quarterstaff. (I don’t give a damn about the new words.) She handily snatches and clears tendrils from around our group.

Big Yellow returns from the gloom with yet another body slung over his shoulder—a small one, head hanging limp, eyes glazed—looks dead. Another girl.

The girl around my waist stops kicking. A sister.

“Get out of here!” Tsinoy shouts from below, lifting its snout and shaking aside cracked fragments of shell. “More coming!” Then it sinks its snout in a large hole it’s dug in the red carapace, crooks each limb, and spins the shell around and around.

I look up. My eyes see better now. The dead forest is alive with shapes—all sorts, all different shades, too many to count. The hull aft must be dead, as all the beasts gather here to finish their job. If the hull can fill itself with wave upon forward wave of Killers, nothing will survive. Leaving is our only option.

Big Yellow hands off the second girl, then pushes all three of us toward the hatch. He lifts up the Knob-Crest and shoves him after.

“We’ll stop them here!” Big Yellow shouts.

The second sister lifts her head and thrusts out a scrawny arm to point. “One more,” she says, blinking rapidly. “I prayed for one! I found him!”

I encourage the Knob-Crest to crawl with me. We pass through the hatch, confused motives propelled by abject fear. If I live, this dead forest ball is never going to leave me—my slumber will forever fill with horrors. The girls cling to me, to each other, limbs twined, trying to caress and kiss—

And it’s all a haze of passages and acrobatics, clumsy enough to make me pull back my lips in a hideous grin, a mockery of mocking, humor my last resort now that fear has finally run dry.

We find the hatch to the transfer craft. The spidery woman is right behind us. She’s wiping her eyes and facial fur with a sleeve and a loose bag. When she sees the two girls, she scoops them to her breast, cooing in a strange, high voice—motherly instinct, I suppose—but then she spins around to find the panel that closes the hatch. It swiftly cuts us off from the rest of the hull. Breathless, she says, “We have to leave now. I never thought…”

She doesn’t finish. A slamming sound comes from outside. The spidery woman and I look at each other—no choice. We have to open the hatch again.

Tsinoy pushes through with another limp body. Big Yellow follows close behind, saying, “That’s it, let’s go,” and the hatch closes.

One of the sisters is the one who pulled me from the birthing sac, who fought to get me here. The other is regaining strength, crying lustily. She clambers over the netting to the limp, pale body in Tsinoy’s grasp and checks his neck for a pulse. The new girl clambers over the netting to a blue sphere, places both her hands on it, and murmurs something to its smooth surface.

The blue surface illuminates.

“Hey!” the spidery woman says in surprise.

The craft moves, shoving us inboard, and then spins around. The netting grips our hands, our arms, even loops around Tsinoy’s spiny limbs. We’re away, shoving off into space, weightless again. A humming starts. Air flows.

The little girl rubs the hemisphere with her hands, murmuring sweetly. The spidery woman looks on in stunned appreciation. “I didn’t know she could do that,” she says.

“They knew it was here all along,” I say, rubbing my shoulders, my knees. “Why wait until we’re nearly killed?”

Big Yellow says, “Our little group wasn’t finished. But now they miss their mother.”

The pale fellow’s eyes open. He looks at Big Yellow, the brightest thing in the room, then at me—half-blind. The Knob-Crest won’t stop hooting and writhing. I can intuit the whole situation. He feels betrayed, almost left behind. He was the girl’s companion, her partner—until she found the pale man, roughly my size, with roughly my