He perambulated around the space he had now, some of it environed, some not. So much space to fill with things. So much space to fill with himself, with his own creations.
His own religion. His own people. His own provinces, to rule as he saw fit. Oh, yes, it would be better this way. Far better to have one’s own people, one’s own rites, one’s own … answers. For him, Mighty Crawler, Great Oozer, Lord God Breaze!
From the node near Deep, Chimi-ahm, Great Clore, determined to recapture those who had escaped. He created wheeled eyes to run along the riverbank, and other little eyes to swim upstream in the Floh, and still others to fly over the wall, into the unknown lands. The captives. He wanted them back. He wanted them back very much. The eyes would find them. In the water of the Floh, other things swam, listening for sounds and emitting sounds of their own, some repulsive, some attractive.
In the node, Clore decided he would go after them soon. In a distant place, Legless God Orimar Breaze decided he would go as well. And the others too. They would all go. Just as soon as the captives were found!
As she flew into the lower end of the gorge, Fringe found her sight blurring once again.
“Poison,” she told herself, aloud.
“Wha’ …” begged one or both of the boxes.
“Poison,” she said again. “On those things they hit us with. I’ve got to set down. Use the med kit….”
There was universal antidote in the kit. She should have used it before they left. She’d forgotten, that’s all. Just forgotten. She should do it now, but she couldn’t spare a hand to get it out just now, and the twins couldn’t help. No place to land in the gorge. She’d have to wait until they came out of the gorge.
“Should have gone over it,” she mumbled to herself. It would have been easier. She could have landed up there. But with the overhang of the looming walls, the curving passage of the river …
“No way,” she advised herself owlishly. “Can’t get there from here. Got to wait until I get out.”
“Wha’ …” pled the box again.
“Not much farther,” she said. “Hardly any way at all.” She concentrated on staying low, almost on the water. The air was quieter here, and the gorge was wider too, where the river had cut it most recently. Softer stratum, something told her. Water’s reached a softer stratum.
She explained this at length to the twins as the walls of the gorge brightened and dimmed, swelled and receded. Not all of that was the drug, or poison, or whatever it had been. Some of it was real, she assured herself. The walls did change with the light, with the direction of flight.
And light was there, at the end, the gap, where the gorge ended. She wanted to laugh but didn’t. She’d made it. There for a few minutes, she hadn’t been sure she’d make it. Now she could set down and use the antidote….
And she was past it, with only a short way farther of tumbled rock and then flatland, a place to set down. She kept it low, waiting for the rock to end, waiting to swerve toward the bank….
The gaver that came from the river below was one of those that had attacked the Dove. She saw it coming. She hit the risers, watching her hand move, watching it take an hour to move, slowly, too slowly, watching the huge jaws gape, one on either side, the fangs coming toward her as in a dream, slowly.
The beast took the flier as a fish takes a fly, crunching it between huge jaws as it fell back down into the water, letting the flier break up when it hit the water.
Instinctively Fringe took a deep breath. She was caught between the instrument panel and the door. Water flooded around her, gray and cold. The opposite door had broken off and she saw the boxes float clear. She wanted to follow them but couldn’t get loose, couldn’t …
Then the remaining parts of the flier collapsed. She came out into the clear, stroked upward, rising, slowly rising. The square silhouettes of the boxes lay above her on the surface with shining halos around them.
The gaver released the inorganic shell to seize the flesh that had been within. A claw caught her, turned her over. The jaws took her. She felt a pain, a horrible pain, in the neck. He had her by the neck.
All right, get it over, get it over, she thought, not screaming, not howling, not drowning, still holding her breath, just get it over.
As he did, biting down, spitting out the smaller piece in favor of the larger one with all the blood in it.
The smaller piece flew up, into the shallows, rolled and rolled and rolled in the eddies near a protruding sandspit, coming to rest on the sand.
The boxes floated and screamed, making only bubbling noises. They moved manipulators, trying to swim, but the manipulators had not been made for swimming. When they bobbed to the surface, they screamed again, “Fringe!” the sound shrieking away over the flat banks, into nothing, receiving no response.
The eddies at the shore caught the boxes too, moved them next to the sandspit, half on, half off, rocked them there, on, off, on, off, each thrust pushing them a tiny bit higher, until at last they did not rock at all.
The river boiled and belched. From a reddened blotch, scraps of cloth floated up, fragments of the flier floated up, each to be caught by the eddy in its turn, each to be deposited upon the sand. The cloth was torn and darkly stained. Pinned to it was an Enforcer’s badge. I Attend the Situation. A picture of an armed warrior and a gylph.
A dink moved and mumbled. A box worked
