Hylozoic (41 page)

 

It was Duxy who woke them. “Eekle eekle!” she piped. Sitting up, Chu realized that once again he could read the Hrull's thoughts and understand her speech. “I hear Thuy whistling for me,” she was saying. “But there are armed men where she is.”

“Lazy eight!” exclaimed Chu, taking in the sharp sparkle of the ambient minds. “Jayjay must have played the harp. Hello, trees. Hello—” But now he teeped the body of the pathetic farmer in the lee of his ruined house, soot sifting across his young, snub face. “Yes, let's go,” he resumed when he could. “This is a cruel place, Duxy. Glee and I will protect you while we're fetching Thuy. We have our teek back now. We can deflect any arrows they shoot.”

Little Wobble was bumbling about in the apple trees, ineffectively trying to catch a magpie, shaking showers of petals to the ground.

“This reminds me of Pepple,” said green Glee, the pale
petals spangling her hair. “People, plants, and animals. No right angles; no machines. Oh, that poor farm family. I wish I could go home, where I know what to expect.”

“Maybe there's a way,” said Chu. “We're gonna meet the others now.” Perhaps he could already have teeped Thuy and Jayjay—but he felt shy. He'd wait to see them face-to-face.

They flapped over the medieval town and landed in a square before the cathedral door. Sure enough, Thuy and Jayjay were there, plus a Hibrane painter holding up his brush like a torch. And to Glee's great delight, Groovy the pitchfork was with them, too. Azaroth was waving a sword, not that the soldiers were putting up much of a fight. Groovy had done something to double most of them over.

As good as his word, Chu deflected the few laggardly crossbow bolts the troops managed to launch. Meanwhile, Thuy, Jayjay, the painter, and the pitchfork clambered into Duxy's mouth with them. Chu sat beside Glee on her bunk, and Groovy squeezed in beside Wobble. The pitchfork hadn't noticed Glee yet; he was focused on his plans for the coming jump.

Perhaps they could have squeezed Azaroth into Duxy's mouth, too, but he teeped that he was planning to stay in this town and start running the place. He teeked his final opponent onto his back and gestured theatrically, taking credit for Duxy's imminent departure.

Belly sagging, the laden Hrull lifted off. To make more room, she'd left her mouth ajar. The Hibrane painter—really too tall for this space—lay just inside her lips, peering out. His fingers twitched with the desire to draw the unfamiliar views of his land.

“That's Hieronymus Bosch,” said Thuy, perched beside Jayjay on the bunk facing Chu and Glee. “The big artist? Can you even believe it? He just painted a picture onto the harp.”

“I see the little horn dog has a new girlfriend,” interrupted Jayjay, glaring at Chu.

“I'm sorry about what happened,” said Chu. “It wasn't really my fault.”

“That's what Thuy says, too,” snapped Jayjay. “Hrull gel must be hot stuff.”

“Oh, stop it now, Jayjay,” said Thuy. “I'm pregnant with your daughter!”

“That's great!” said Chu, keeping his thoughts flat and shallow.

“No gel till we get back to Hrullwelt!” announced Duxy, expecting the pushers to start begging for their drug. “But it's fine if all of you come along. The more the merrier.”

“The more pushers she bags, the more she gets paid, is what she means,” said Thuy. “And, Chu, teep all of us your Knot, will you? Groovy's been keeping us here. Jayjay and I need to get back to where we started out.”

Chu teeped around the Knot, which miffed the pitchfork just a little bit, as he'd wanted to be the go-to guy.

“Don't jump till I give you the say-so,” rasped Groovy. “I figured out the best way to steer you home.”

“Bossy as ever,” said Glee.

“Hey, sweet thing!” sang out Groovy, finally seeing Glee. He writhed past Chu's knees to lean against the Pepple woman's side. “I was hopin' to find you. I knew that Lovva had steered you to Lobrane Earth.” He touched her cheek with his tines.

“It's really you?” said Glee, running her green fingers along the pitchfork's twitching handle. “I like you better with a face.”

“How'd you end up a pusher?”

“I had to leave Pepple in a big rush. It was the night after you and Lovva disappeared. For me, it's been ten long years.”

“Thought you looked a little worn around the edges,” said Groovy. “But, hey, that's no never mind. You're still my gal, aren't you? I can't be happy with just plain Lovva. Like tea without sugar. What do you say you come back home?”

“That's my biggest dream,” said Glee, her three eyes glowing. But then her face clouded over. “Only—the aristos will execute me. You see, I killed Count Foppiano.”

“That duke of earl who was always sniffin' around?” said Groovy with a chuckle. “Good job! Lovva and me are fixin' to disintegrate as many toffs as it takes to bring down the old order. We'll still be superpowered for a few hours after we get home. Hell, Glee, you come along with me and you'll be the godmother of the revolution!”

“I'd be sick for days and days, kicking the gel. But—maybe. You really don't mind that I've grown older than you?” She batted her third eye and gave Groovy a tremulous smile. “Perhaps Lovva will be glad for that. She was always jealous of my looks.”

“You're still smart and nasty, right? That's what counts.”

“We're ready to jump now,” said Jayjay, growing impatient. “Were you going to suggest a route, Groovy?”

“Oh, I'm gonna help you big time,” said the pitchfork. “By the time you get back to Yolla Bolly, you'll kick butt on those featherdusters no doubt.”

“Well, I just hope you realize how tricky the navigation really is,” fretted Jayjay. “If we blindly head out perpendicular to this brane's timeline, I bet we'll hit the Lobrane at, like, one thousand
B.C.
”

“We'll piss into the wind for the whole trip,” said Groovy confidently. “Fly against time's natural flow. I laid us down a waypoint to aim for.” He teeped them an image of a whirlpool in the Planck sea.

Chu's skin prickled. He thought of cold water covering his
face and dragging him into the endless deep. “I don't like that,” he said.

“A native aktual is the silp for this particular swirl,” said Groovy. “Her name's Beth Gimel. She's in tight with Art Zed, the aktual who made the beanstalk for Jay. She's not gonna swallow you all the way down, Chu, you ain't on today's menu.”

“But we are?” said Thuy.

“It's all part of the loony loop we ride,” said Groovy. “You'll do us like we done you. Feller says,
mektoub
. It is written.”

“What about you, Jeroen?” Jayjay asked the weathered artist. “Would you like us to set you down before we leave?”

“No, no, I want to experience it all,” said Bosch. “The demonic pitchfork tells me we'll see heaven, hell, and the Almighty Himself.”

“What you might call a figure of speech,” buzzed Groovy. “Puttin' it in the man's own terms.”

“I long to see the Last Things face-to-face,” continued Bosch, tapping his upper lip with his dry, narrow tongue. “And if this be but sorcery and sham—why, that's a kind of secret wisdom, too. I'm glad to put my life into upheaval. As a youth I dreamed of being a penniless wanderer. My small success as a painter has imprisoned me for too long.”

 

 

Each of them hoping for the best, they pushed—launching Duxy across the glistening Planck sea, her mouth stuffed with Chu, Thuy, Jayjay, Glee, Bosch, Groovy, and Wobble. Once they were en route, the pitchfork flew in front, leading the way.

This time, lazy eight was in effect for the whole trip, and the travelers stayed in close teep contact. In order to fight their way
up the timestream, the humans and the Pepplese pushed without letup. Their massed motive force was even a bit more than required; the surplus teek energies swelled Duxie's pusher cone.

Drained by the steady effort, Chu grew numb and dreamy. To avoid sitting knee-to-knee with Jayjay, he'd lain down beside Bosch, the two of them staring out of Duxy's mouth as she skimmed across the Planck sea, following Groovy's lead.

Perhaps a half hour passed. A high range of light gray vapor had appeared on the horizon, occasionally flaring up in lofty streaks. Here and there, the surface below them seemed to boil, as if stirred by powerful eddies. And now a prodigious bubble shot up from the sea directly below Duxy, accompanied by a spout of spume.

“Stop pushing!” teeped the manta to her crew. “I want to turn aside.”

“Not now,” responded Groovy from up ahead. “We're just gettin' good.”

“He's crazy!” teeped Duxy. “He'll kill us all!”

Worn and bewildered as they were, the crew ceased their efforts. Surely it would be all right to drift for a bit and catch their bearings. But, as it happened, their cessation of effort made no difference. A fierce wind was driving them toward the anomalous zone ahead. And when Duxy tried to fight the gale, its true force become apparent. Her wind-whipped wings fluttered like ineffectual rags.

And so they continued bowling along in Groovy's wake. As always, the interbrane air glowed, and a still brighter illumination rose from the roiled sea, casting uncanny highlights on the lean features of the weathered man at Chu's side. Teeping through Bosch's eyes, Chu tasted the treasure trove of tint and shape that the artist saw.

The thin air thrilled steadily with a high-pitched vibration. The ocean's surface was beginning to tilt, as if they were flying
downhill. This made the gray band along the horizon loom that much higher, like a gigantic cataract rolling into the sea, ranging to both sides as far as Chu could see.

Crosswise currents had begun ripping the sea to clotted foam. Through the seething rents, Chu could glimpse a chaos of flitting beings: the subbies. Some looked like men with the heads of birds, some like fish with human legs, all of them racing along half-submerged, pacing the travelers.

“Look out for them,” warned Thuy.

“We have to jump away from here!” teeped Duxy once again.

“Wait!” blasted Groovy. “We're almost there.”

Bosch only stared—fascinated, fatalistic, slightly smiling. Perhaps for him it was as if he were already dead.

And now, directly ahead of them, the ocean surface curved very sharply down, disappearing into darkness. With an effort Chu understood. They were dots at the edge of a maelstrom that was hundreds of miles across.

Duxy let out an anguished squeal; she opened wide her mouth and spit out her passengers, forcing them forward with her cheeks. Bosch, Thuy, and Jayjay went first. Chu managed to hook his feet onto Duxy's jaw for a moment, but little Wobble tugged him loose and let him drop after the others. The Hrull may well have meant to keep Glee, but, beckoned on by the hovering pitchfork, she gathered the courage to leap out, too.

As Chu hit the Planck sea, his immediate fear was of an attack by the subbies. But—as a small blessing—these creatures were keeping clear of the currents at the whirlpool's verge. Looking around, he saw Bosch, Thuy, and Jayjay ahead of him, with Glee and the reckless pitchfork floating behind. Duxy hung above them, fighting the hurricane wind as Wobble nestled himself into her mouth.

“Hrullwelt's thataway!” called Groovy, pointing his tines. Lightened of her main load, and empowered by the energies stored in her teeker cone, the manta sped off like a thunderbolt.

With an abrupt lurch, Chu passed over the maelstrom's lip and rushed headlong into the abyss. He felt the sickening sweep of descent—but then the sense of falling ceased. Looking around, he saw that the rotational forces had taken over; he was circling around an immense funnel, unfathomable in depth, with glassy sides that spun with bewildering rapidity, bearing him along. It was a scene of terrible grandeur.

Round and round the six companions swept—not with any uniform movement—but in dizzying swings and jerks that sent them sometimes only a few hundred yards, sometimes several miles, and sometimes through a full circuit of the kingdomsized whirl.

For the moment, they were too drained to think of fighting their way upward against the maelstrom's currents, or through the cyclone winds that filled its core. And so the six coasted on, roughly grouped.

Visible within the glowing walls were the innermost recesses of the subdimensional world, alive with forms that grew the more baroque the greater the depth beneath the Planck sea's proper surface.

The high, chiming sound within the immense spindle had taken on the quality of heraldic music. Chu formed a mental image of the whirlpool as the bell of an otherworldly trumpet whose mouthpiece lay in an infinitely distant land below. Gabriel's trump. And now, within his mind, the music segued into speech. The maelstrom's resident spirit was talking to him.

“I'm Beth Gimel. An aktual. Our world is filled with infinities of all sizes. In my fireplace, the burning sticks have alef-null branchings, but the subtler flames have alef-one forks. The
wood and fire merges into alef-two eddies of smoke. Groovy asked me to reach through the subdimensions to make a path to infinity.”