face. “Now!”
They had hit a slightly wider part of the now steeply descending passage when the wind soughing past them from ahead suddenly picked up and became a gale. The two raptor scouts in front of Uagen, their folded wings acting like sails in the howling torrent of air, tried to wedge themselves against the rippling, buckling walls. They began to slide back towards him while Uagen also tried to brace himself against the damp tissues of the tube.
“Oh,” 974 Praf said matter-of-factly from behind and below Uagen. “This development is not an indication of good.”
“Help!” Uagen screamed, watching the two raptor scouts, both still desperately clutching at the passage’s walls, slide closer towards him. He tried to make an X of himself, but the walls were now too far apart.
“Down here,” Interpreter 974 Praf said. Uagen looked down between his feet. 974 Praf was holding onto the ribbed floor, flattened against it as best she could.
He looked up as the nearest raptor scout skidded to within touching distance. “Good idea!” he gasped. He dived. His forehead bounced off the heel spur of the raptor scout. He grabbed at the ribs on the floor as both the raptor scouts slid over him. The wind howled and tugged at his suit, then faded away. He untangled himself from 974 Praf and looked back. A painful-looking tangle of beaks, wings and limbs, the two raptor scouts were wedged further up in the passage with the one which had been bringing up the rear, in the narrow part they had recently forced their way through. One of the winged creatures clacked something.
974 Praf clacked back, then jerked to her feet and scuttled down the passage. “It is the case that the raptor scouts of the Yoleus will try to remain wedged there and so block the conflagration-feeding wind while we complete the journey which we make to the outside of the Sansemin. This way, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.”
He stared after her retreating back, then scrambled after her. He was getting an odd feeling in his stomach. He tried to place it, then realised. It was like being in an inertia-subject lift or craft. “Are we sinking?” he said, whimpering.
“The Sansemin would appear to be losing height rapidly,” 974 Praf said, bouncing from rib to rib down the steeply pitched floor ahead of him.
“Oh, shit.” Uagen looked back. They were round a bend and out of sight of the raptor scouts. The passage dipped still further; it was now like descending a steeply pitched flight of stairs.
“Ah ha,” the Interpreter said, as the wind tugged at them again.
Uagen felt his eyes widen. He stared ahead. “Light!” he screamed. “Light! Praf! I can see…” His voice trailed away.
“Fire,” the Interpreter said. “Down on the floor, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.”
Uagen turned and flung himself to the steps a moment before the fireball hit. He had time to take one deep breath and try to bury his face in his arms. He felt 974 Praf on top of him, wings extended, covering him. The blast of heat and light lasted a couple of seconds. “Up again,” the Interpreter said. “You first.”
“You’re on fire!” he yelled as she pushed him with her wings and he stumbled down the steps of ribs.
“This is the case,” the Interpreter said. Smoke and flames curled behind her wings as she prodded and pushed Uagen downwards. The wind was growing stronger and stronger; he had to fight against it to make any headway, forcibly walking down the ribbed side of the now almost vertical shaft as though they were somehow back on the level.
Looking ahead, Uagen could see light again. He groaned, then saw that it was blue-white, not yellow this time.
“We approach the outside,” 974 Praf gasped.
They dropped from the belly of the dying behemothaur, falling not much faster than what was left of the vast creature itself as it burned and disintegrated and collapsed and descended all at once. Uagen held 974 Praf to him, smothering the flames eating at her wings, then used his ankle motors and balloon cape to halt their fall, and after an eternity of falling amongst flaming, fluttering wreckage and injured animals, brought the two of them round from underneath the massive, V-shaped ruin that was the dying behemothaur, into clear air space where the remains of the Yoleus’ expeditionary force of raptor scouts found them moments before an ogrine disseisor could swoop in to swallow them whole.
The dazed, silent Interpreter shivered in his arms, the smell of her burned flesh filling his nose as they rose slowly with the raptor scout troupe back to the dirigible behemothaur Yoleus.
“Go?”
“Yes; away. Go. Depart. Leave.”
“You wish to go away, depart, leave, now?”
“As soon as possible. When’s the next ship? Of anybody’s? Well, not, umm. Chelgrian. Yes; not Chelgrian.”
Uagen had never imagined that Yoleus’ interrogatory chamber would seem remotely homely, but it did now. He felt bizarrely safe here. It was just a pity he had to leave.
Yoleus was talking to him via a connecting cable and an Interpreter called 46 Zhun. The bulkier body of the nominally male 46 Zhun was perched on a ledge beside 974 Praf, who was stuck to the chamber wall looking singed and limp and dead but apparently beginning her reconstitution and recovery. 46 Zhun closed his eyes. Uagen was left standing there on the soft warm floor of the chamber. He could still smell the odour of burning coming off his clothes. He shivered.
46 Zhun opened his eyes again. “The next departing object is due to leave from the Second Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal in the Yonder lobe in five days,” the Interpreter said.
“I’ll take it. Wait; is it Chelgrian?”
“No. It is a Jhuvuonian Trader.”
“I’ll take it.”
“There is not from now sufficient time for you to journey to and arrive at the said Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal.”
“What?”
“There is not from now sufficient time for you to—”
“Well, how long would it take?”
The Interpreter closed its eyes again for a few moments, then opened them and said, “Twenty-three days would be the minimum time of requirement for a being such as you to journey to and arrive at the Second Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal from this point.”
Uagen could feel a terrible gnawing in his guts; it was a sensation he hadn’t felt since he was a very young child. He tried to remain calm. “When is the next ship after that?”
“That is not known,” the Interpreter replied immediately.
Uagen fought back the urge to cry. “Is it possible to signal from Oskendari?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“At beyond-light speed?”
“No.”
“Could you signal for a ship? Is there any way for me to get off in the near future?”
“The definition of near future. This would be what?”
Uagen suppressed a moan. “In the next hundred days?”
“There are no objects known to be arriving or departing within that time period.”
Uagen put his hands into his head-hair and pulled at it. He roared out of frustration, then stopped, blinking. He’d never done that. Never done either. Pulled at his hair or roared with frustration. He stared up at the blackened, crippled-looking body of 974 Praf, then dropped his head and stared at the chamber floor beneath his feet. His little ankle motors gleamed mockingly back up at him.
He raised his head. What had he been thinking of?
He checked what he knew about Jhuvuonian Traders. Only semi-Contacted. Fairly peaceful, quite trustworthy. Still in the age of scarcity. Ships capable of a few hundred lights. Slow by Culture standards, but sufficient. “Yoleus,” he said calmly. “Can you signal the Second Secessionary Tropic of Inclinatory Portal or whatever it’s called?”
“Yes.”
“How long would that take?”
