Everything was as automatic as the smiths’ technology allowed, but there was no escaping the tyranny of the wind. Blade had just one control to operate — a cord attached to a distant knife that would rip the balloon open when he pulled, releasing the buoyant vapors and dropping him out of the sky at a smooth rate — so the smiths assured — fast, but not too fast. As pilot, he had one duty, to time his plummet so it ended in a decent-sized body of water.
Even arriving at a fair clip, no mere splash should harm his armored, disklike form. If a tangle of rope and torn fabric pinned his legs, dragging him down, Blade could hold his breath long enough to chew his way free and creep ashore.
Nevertheless, it had been hard to convince the survivors’ council, ruling over the ruins of Ovoom Town, to let him try this crazy idea. They naturally doubted his claim that a blue qheuen should be their next courier.
But too many human boys and girls have died in recent days, rushing about in flimsy gliders. Urrish balloonists have been breaking necks and legs. All I have to do is crash into liquid and I’m guaranteed to walk away. Today’s crude circumstances make me an ideal aviator!
There was just one problem. While hooking Blade into this conveyance, the smiths had assured him the afternoon breeze was reliable this time of year, straight up the valley of the Gentt. It should waft him all the way to splashdown at Prosperity Lake within a few miduras, leaving more than enough time to dash at a rapid qheuen gait and reach the nearest semaphore station by nightfall. His packet of reports about conditions at ravaged Ovoom would then slide into the flashing message stream. And then Blade could finally scratch his lingering duty itch, restoring contact with Sara as he had vowed. Assuming she was at Mount Guenn, that is.
Only the winds changed, less than a midura after takeoff. The promised quick jaunt east became a long detour north.
Toward home, he noted. Unfortunately, the enemy lay in between. At this rate he’d be shot down before Dolo Village ever hove into view.
To make matters worse, he was starting to get thirsty.
This situation — it is ridiculous, Blade grumbled as sunset brought forth stars. The breeze broke up into rhythmic, contrary gusts. Several times, these bursts raised his hopes by shoving the balloon toward peaks where he spied other semaphore stations, passing soft flashes down the mountain chain. There was apparently a lot of message activity tonight, much of it heading north.
But whenever some large lake seemed about to pass below the bulging gasbag, another hard gusset blew in, pushing him at an inftiriating angle, back over jagged rocks and trees. Frustration only heightened his thirst.
If this keeps up, I’ll be so dehydrated that I’d dive for a little puddle.
Blade soon realized how far he had come. As the last light of day vanished from the tallest peaks, he spied a cleft in the mountains that any Sixer would recognize — the pass leading to Festival Glade, where each year the Commons of Six Races gathered to celebrate — and mourn — another year of exile. For some time after the sun was gone, Loocen’s bright crescent kept him company, illuminating the foothills. Blade expected the surface to draw closer as he was pushed northeast, but the simpleminded urrish altimeter somehow sensed changing ground levels and reacted with another jet of flame, preventing the balloon from meeting the valley floor.
Then Loocen sank as well, abandoning him to a world of shadows. The mountains became little more than black bites, torn out of the starry heavens. It left Blade all alone with his imagination, speculating how the Jophur were going to deal with him.
Would there be a flash of cold flame, as he had seen darting from the belly of the cruel corvette that devastated Ovoom Town? Would they rip him to bits with scalpels of sound? Or were he and the balloon destined for vaporization upon making contact with some defensive force field? The kind of barrier often described in garish Earthling novels?
Worst of all, he pictured a “tractor beam,” seizing and dragging him down to torment in some Jophur- designed hell.
The cord — should I pull it now? he wondered. Lest our foes learn the secret of hot-air balloons?
Qheuens never used to laugh before coming to Jijo. But somehow the blue variety picked up the habit, infuriating their Gray Queens, even before hoons and humans could be blamed as bad influences. Blade’s legs now contracted, quivering as a calliope of whistles escaped his breathing vents.
Right! We mustn’t allow this “technology” to fall into the wrong hands … or rings. Why, the Jophur might make balloons of their own, to use against us!
The upland canyons answered with faint repetitions of his laughter — echoes that cheered him up a little, as if there were an audience for his imminent parting from the universe. No qheuen likes to die alone, Blade thought, tightening his grip on the cord that would send him plunging to Jijo’s dark embrace. I only hope someone finds enough shell fragments to dross.…
At that moment, a faint glimmer made him pause. It came from dead ahead, farther up the narrowing valley, below the mountain pass. Blade tried focusing his visor, but again had to curse the poor vision his race inherited from ancient times. He peered at the pale shine.
Could it be …?
The soft rays reminded him of starlight, glancing off water, making him hold off yanking the cable for a few duras. If it was an alpine lake, he might have just a little time to estimate the distance, include his rate of drift, and guess the right moment to pull. With my luck, it will turn out to be a mulc spider’s acid pit. At least that would take care of the mulching problem.
The glimmer drew nearer, but its outline seemed strangely smooth, unlike a natural body of water. Its profile was oval, and the reflections had a convex quality that—
Ifni and the ancestors! Blade cursed in surprised dismay. It is the Jophur ship!
He stared in blank awe at the size of the globular thing.
So huge, I thought it was part of the landscape.
Worse, he measured his course and heading.
Soon, I’ll be right on top of it.
If anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach.
At once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate.
This is better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold, personal gesture toward God.
The point seemed apropos then, and even more so now. When faced with casual extinction by an omnipotent force, sometimes the only option left to a poor mortal is to go out with defiance.
That proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including sexual. So Blade made a virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible.
Look THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, waving his sensor feelers suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be killed in anger, not as an afterthought.
Waves of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant entity with my privates bared.
Log Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose.
As the wind pushed him toward the battleship — a thing so huge it rivaled nearby mountains — all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did not find amusing.
Then, to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been longing for — a lake. A large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning the Festival Glade under hectares of cool snowmelt.
If they don’t shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me, I might yet reach…
But how could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him pinned by star-god instruments.
Sure enough, the tingling of Blade’s exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as if they were being stroked — then stung — by a host of squirming shock worms. Not a sexual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts, causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through mud at armored
