Starrigger

base, sending cups and silverware catapulting across the room to crash and ricochet off the walls. I was on my feet, rushing toward him. The gun was still in his hand, but I reached him just as he brought it up, and kicked it away. The fight was over. I picked up Darla's pistol and stood over him. Darla tore the blanket off the bed, sending Lori flopping to the floor, and rushed to Vance. Wilkes looked up at me, his face blank and stunned, a red flower blooming on his pretty white blouse.

'Roland!' I called. 'Close the hatch!'

'Wait.' He went to it and peeked out, then beckoned to someone. Susan poked her head in, and Roland pulled her through, then shut the hatch. Susan saw that John and everyone she knew was all right, then burst into tears and flung her arms around Roland.

John was picking himself off the floor. I went to the connecting hatch and turned the mechanical lock, then took John's arm and slapped the grip of Darla's pistol into his hand. 'Keep an eye on that hatch,' I told him. 'If you so much as hear something, shoot.' He nodded.

I went for the wand, picked it up off the floor. It throbbed faintly in my hand, and I rotated the silver band until it stopped. Lori began screaming, rising to her feet with her arms flailing at phantoms. I ripped the sheet off the bed and covered her, wrapping her in my arms. 'It was all a dream, honey, all a dream,' I whispered in her ear as I walked her over to the overturned coffee table. I scooped up the key and called Sam.

'Sam, it's Jake.'

'Jesus Christ! What's going on up there?'

'Everyone's okay. How's your situation?'

'What the hell's all that caterwauling?'

'We're all okay, never mind. What's happening at your end?'

'Everybody left. Went topside, I guess. Something's going on up there.'

Just then I heard shouting come from out in the hall. 'Yeah, the ship's being attacked. Exactly by what, I don't know. Can you get free down there like you said you could?'

'Sure.'

'Then do it and wait for us. We have to find Winnie, and?'

'Winnie's here.'

'What! How in hell did she…? Never mind, never mind. Good. Okay, listen.' I thought fast. 'We'll try to make it down there somehow. Be ready to roll.'

'Fine. Where to?'

'We're going to find a place to hide until we can negotiate our way off this tuna hotpak dinner.'

'But where?'

'Pack plenty of antacid.'

23

The kid was awake now, looking around at everyone and blinking. 'Good morning,' he said. He got up from the bed. I handed him the still-howling Lori and told him to try and calm her down. I went to Darla. She was on her knees, curled into a ball over the unmoving, blanket-shrouded form of her father. The stench of burning flesh and hair filled the room.

'Van,' she was moaning. 'Oh, Van.'

I gripped her shoulders. 'Darla, we have to go. The Rikkis.'

She began to weep, great violent sobs shaking her body, but there was no sound.

'Darla. We have to leave.' I let her go on for a while, then took her arms and gently pulled her away. Her body became rigid, then slowly relaxed. I pulled her to her feet and turned her around. Her face was a contorted mask of pain. I escorted her to the other side of the room and helped her on with her backpack, which I had found near the table. I told Roland to check the corridor. Susan calmed down and he moved her aside. 'It's okay,' he said, peering out. Far down the corridor came the sound of screaming and general commotion.

'All right,' I announced, 'everyone move out!'

Lori was hyperventilating. I helped John sling her over his shoulder and held her while he balanced her precariously. I picked up Jimmy's gun and handed it to the kid, then gave Darla her pistol back. It took a while to get everyone ready, but finally I had them filing out into the hall and to the right, hugging the walls, with Roland taking point. Everyone was armed but John and Susan. I was the last one out. I stood at. the door and looked at Wilkes. His eyes pleaded with me.

I was about to say something when a low, rumbling sound shook the floor and the connecting hatch suddenly flew to splinters. A Reticulan came striding through, bearing a strange silver weapon of curving surfaces and a bell-shaped business end. I ducked behind the bulkhead and brought the.44 around and fired. The alien's head exploded into puffs of pink mist, shards of chitin clattering against the walls and floor. The body kept walking toward me. I backed away, turned, and ran down the hall, whirling and backpedaling every few steps until I made it to a comer. I stopped for one last look and saw the headless body topple into the hall, its legs still working. No one else came out. The others were looking back at me. I barked at them to keep going.

A little further ahead, the Teelies stopped to pick up their backpacks, which they had left in the hallway. I grabbed John's and struggled into it while we ran. I rushed to the head of the line and told Roland to bring up the rear.

There was smoke in the corridor, and shouting and crashing sounds came from somewhere up ahead. As we neared the source of the disturbance, the smoke got steadily thicker, until we had a choice of turning back or asphyxiating. I did not want to face the Reticulans, and as far as I knew there was no stairway to the lower decks in that direction, which is what we needed. But there was a side corridor nearby that looked like it led to a way out on deck. I ducked down it and made sure everyone followed me before I went to the head of the line again. I cracked the hatch and found that it opened onto the starboard deck, but I wasn't sure I wanted to go out there.

Beyond the railing and out to sea, a blood-red moon squatted on the horizon. Silhouetted against it was the outline of what I took to be another megaleviathan, minus the ship-structure, slowly closing off the Laputa's starboard beam. Above, the air was filled with flying motes of fire. Giant shapes crossed the glowing disk of the moon, batlike, nightmare shapes, and from all around came the sound of great leathery wings flapping. Dots of flame circled the Laputa like swarms of fireflies, some suddenly deorbiting to come arcing down on the ship. I heard a thump and looked to my right. One had hit the deck not far away. It bounced against the bulkhead and came to rest against a stack of deck chairs. It was a melon-size flaming ball of something, a pitchlike substance probably, trailing a length of fireproofed braided lanyard. The fabric-and-wood-frame deckchairs ignited immediately. I craned my head out to get a better view. Spot fires flared everywhere along the upper deck, and fire details rushed everywhere, shouting, trailing firehoses like white wriggling snakes. I didn't want to go out there, but there was no choice. I looked for the nearest stairs for B Deck, saw none, but decided it was best to head aft.

'Put me down. God damn it!'

It was Lori, screaming at John. I closed the hatch and walked back. John was setting her down and apologizing profusely. She took a swing at him, missed, and when I took her arm she sent a haymaker toward me. I caught her wrist.

'Lori, settle down! It's me, Jake! Remember?'

Her eyes focused on me and the hysterical hatred drained from her face. She blinked and looked again. 'Who? Oh, yeah. Yeah.' She looked around, bewildered. 'What happened? Where are we?' Then she noticed the sheet and her lack of clothes. 'What the punkin'hell…?'

'A pirate mega is attacking the ship,' I told her, thinking it better to concentrate on the present problem than on past traumas which she may or may not remember. 'We have to get belowdecks.'

That brought her around. 'Are they firebombing?'

'Yes, and it looks like they're pulling alongside to board.'

'Where are we?'

'Top deck, starboard, near the bow.'