as a pumpkin, was sniffing suspiciously in the direction of Storm’s panniers.
Beyond the charming Jizogirl: Catmaul exhibited an athlete’s lithe strength; Faizai echoed Rotifero’s sexual preening; Shamrock was plainly itching to get back to work, as if looking to impress Pankey and secure the number-two slot; and Gumball shyly pondered her own paw-feet rather than make eye-contact with Storm.
“Pleased to meet you all,” said Storm. “I’m anxious to learn more about our mission. I hope I’ll be an asset.”
Pankey spoke. “You are rather the hundredth-and-one leg on a centipede, you know. We had a complete roster without you butting in.”
“Pankey! For shame!” Jizogirl made up for her earlier quip about “supercargo” in Storm’s eyes with this remonstrance, and he chose to appear unaffected by Pankey’s gibe.
“I know I can be of some use. Just tell me what to do.”
“Well, we want to sail at dawn, and we still have several hours of work to accomplish before dark. So if you could possibly pitch in—”
“Of course. Just point me toward a task.”
“Why don’t you collect biomass for now? It’s the simplest chore.”
Storm bit his tongue against a defense of his own abilities, and merely said, “Sure. Should I slave my UPD to the others?”
Pankey frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course.”
Storm did so. Then, removing a sharp, strong nanocellulose machete from his panniers (and also some cinnabons for everyone, much welcomed), he headed toward a stand of spartina. Soon, with energetic effort, he had accumulated a surplus of the tall grass, and so was able to take a break. He strolled onboard the ship to learn more about it. He saw that the superwood components were being grafted into place with various epoxies from the UPD.
Rotifero spied Storm and gestured grandly, eager to abandon his own work and act as tour guide. “The
“So fast?”
Rotifero motioned for Storm to look over the side at the ship’s unique construction. “The humans called this model the hydroptere. Multi-hulled, very fast. But here’s the real secret.”
Rotifero walked to the fore of the ship and kicked at a bundle of neatly sorted fabric and lines. “She’s a kiteship. Once we get this scoop aloft, the weather mind provides an unceasing wind. We should average fifty knots. Old Tropo even keeps us on the proper heading. No navigation necessary. Which is fine by me, as I don’t know a sextant from an astrolabe.”
Storm nodded sagely, although the instruments named were unfamiliar to him. “And what do we do when we arrive in Hawaii?”
“Ah, I’d best let Pankey explain all that tonight. He’s our leader, you know, and he rather resents anyone stepping on his lines. Say, what do you think of Fazai? Aren’t her ears the perkiest and hairiest you’ve ever seen? You know what they say: ‘Ears with tufts, can’t get enough!’”
Storm felt hot blood flash beneath his furry face. Wardens lived solitary lives, each responsible for vast bioregions, meeting only infrequently. At such times, mating was lustily indulged in, with gene-regulated, reversible contraceptive locks firmly in place. In his two decades of family-centric life, Storm had not yet managed to meet a free female and mate. In fact, the unprecedented presence of so many of his kind in such proximity rather unnerved him.
“I—I wouldn’t know.”
Rotifero jabbed an elbow into Storm’s ribs. “I realize the ten of us’re paired up evenly already, but don’t worry. One of the does will probably take pity on you. If any of them have a spare minute!”
Storm’s embarrassment flicked to hurt pride in an instant. “Thanks, I’m sure. But I’m used to Great Lakes does. They’re much nicer in every way.”
Pankey put a stop to any further amatory talk with a shouted, “Hey, you two, back to work!”
Storm spent the rest of the afternoon chopping and hauling spartina, and trying not to think of Faizai’s ears.
Twilight brought successful completion of all their tasks. Sailing at dawn was assured, Pankey confirmed. A driftwood fire was kindled, tasty food was fabbed from spartina fed into the now separated UPD’s (the same method by which the voyagers would sustain themselves at sea; the proseity units could desalinate seawater as well), and everyone settled down around the flames on UPD-fabbed cushions laid over mattresses of dried seaweed. Conversation was casual, and Storm mainly listened. He soon deduced that the ten wardens all hailed from up and down the Pacific Coast, and knew each other to varying degrees.
When all had finished eating, Pankey stood, and the others, including Storm, snapped to attention.
“I will endeavor to bring our newest member up to speed,” said the tall warden, grooming his muzzle somewhat self-consciously. “But this is a good time for anyone else to ask questions as well, if you’re unsure of anything.
“We ten—excuse me, we eleven—have been constituted an ERT—an Emergency Response Team—by the tropospheric mind—Old Tropo, if he’ll permit the familiarity—and given the assignment of straightening out the mess in Hawaii. All the wardens in that chain of islands have perished, assassinated by Mauna Loa, sister to Tropo, who wishes to enslave all the mobile entities of that biosphere.
“We are all familiar, I believe, with the phenomenon of ‘rogue lobes,’ isolated colonies of virgula and sublimula which descend to the ground as star jelly. Usually, their lifetimes are extremely short and erratic, given their separation from the main currents of the weather mind. But in the case of Mauna Loa, we have an intelligent and self-sustaining organism, unfortunately quite deranged and exhibiting no signs of possessing any ethical constraints.
“As near as Tropo can determine, a rogue lobe hybridized with two types of extremophile microbe: an endolithic species and a hyperthermophilic species. The result is smart magma, centered in the active Mauna Loa volcano, with vast subterranean extensions throughout Hawaii’s volcanic system and beyond. Mauna Loa’s active tubes stretch far out to sea, in fact, and she appears to be trying to extend them to reach other land masses in the Pacific Ring of Fire, to colonize them as well. Meanwhile, aboveground, the magma’s agents are local animal species controlled by transcranial inductive caps that consist of a kernel of smart magma insulated by a shell of inert, heat-absorptive material. It is these animal agents which slew our fellows.”
Wrinkles stuck up a paw-hand, flaring his broad patagium, and asked a question that had been on Storm’s mind.
“How did Mauna Loa ever capture animal agents in the first place?”
“Good question,” Pankey said. “Tropo has reconstructed the evolution of the non-fatal cold magma caps along these lines. Mauna Loa would throw out lariats of moderately hot smart magma—its necessarily high temperature downgraded by a radioactive component that served to keep the cooler substance plastic—at any animal that passed near an active flow. In ninety-nine point nine percent of such attacks, the victim would die. But once a single victim, however damaged, survived with a magma patch on its epidermis, Mauna Loa had an agent. And once it recruited an agent with manipulative abilities—such as one of the many extant island simians—it had the ability to place the refined cold magma caps on a great numbers of recruits.”
“So we can expect some hassle from these agents,” said Jizogirl. Storm risked a glance toward her, admiring her understated bravado, and trying in the firelight to assess once again the degree of tuftedness of her ears.
“Yes. They will run interference to stop us from killing Mauna Loa.”
This new talk of killing troubled Storm a bit. “Isn’t there any way we might convince Mauna Loa to modify her bad behavior, to fall in line with Tropo’s leadership?”
Pankey emitted a derisive blurt. “Reason with a killer volcano! Good luck! I’d like to see you try!”
“Just watch me then!”
Pankey turned disdainfully away from Storm and directed his speech to the rest. “The saner members of the ERT will be employing logic bombs against Mauna Loa. The plan for the bomb has been uploaded to everyone’s UPD—yes, Storm, yours as well. This goes a long way toward insuring that at least one of us should reach the volcano and be able to drop the bomb in. The bomb’s antisense instructions will replicate and propagate rapidly through the silicaceous medium, and shut down the magma mind.”
