[Kelvin 03] - Chimaera's Copper (with Robert E. Margroff) (31 page)

"And if it is, you'll stay?" his father asked, catching on.

"Until you join me. The chimaera will warn you if I get there and the king's guardsmen are in control and I get caught and can't return." For Mervania could touch other minds more freely, here in her own frame.

"Why can't we all go?" Marvin asked. "One after the other?" "Because one after the other we could all be killed or captured. The squarears can't help and neither can the chimaera. So I have to find out."

They were still discussing it as Kelvin forced his feet to carry him into the transporter. His heart skipped--

It seemed to be all right. The four Loafers he had seen into the transporter were there with a big pile of sting bundles behind them. All four of the men were covered with sweat from the work of lifting bundles the froogears had carried with ease. The labor of getting copper to this frame was more than any of them had anticipated.

Kelvin heaved a sigh of relief and exchanged greetings. Redleaf, Bilger, Hester, and of course Jillip. The boy, unlike the three grown men, was sweatless and resting. Why did they let him get away with such laziness?

"King's guardsmen been around?" Considering the mountain of sting bundles, the question seemed unnecessary.

"Uh-uh," Redleaf said. "Just us and the copper. Jillip's supposed to be watching. He's too weak for anything else."

"Says you!" Jillip said.

Redleaf grinned and bent to pick up the just-arrived bundle. It was almost like a farm operation John had once told Kelvin about. A machine transporting bundles of grain or grass that had then to be carried by hand. He doubted that the grain bundles had ever weighed as much as copper.

"When the royalists learn what we've got, they'll want it," Hester said. "We may need an army just to get this to where we can buy one."

"Blrood, you said." Not Throod, as at home, or Shrood as in the silver-serpent place.

"Yah." Hester grunted as he helped Redleaf swing the latest bundle onto the stack.

"I guess I'll check outside." Jillip isn't doing it. He must think he's royalty. The kid's a slacker, all right.

He stepped outside and discovered that it was now an overcast day. Dark clouds in the sky rather than the white pillows that had been there when he left. A day like this seemed made for worry.

To dispel worry he activated his belt. He lifted slowly, slowly by the rock face. Another ledge, narrower than the one he had left, was between him and the top of the bluff. He settled there.

The gauntlets began to tingle their warning.

Now hypersensitive to their messages, he looked quickly down at the great tree and the broad slash of river. He saw nothing unusual. Why then the warning?

Suddenly it was dark. Not the shadow of a thickening vapor, but a deep darkness that covered the cliffside and the ledge while leaving the more distant landscape unscathed.

He looked up, expecting to see a dense cloud or wind-tossed mass of dust. What he actually saw astonished and terrified him. It was a great dark something hung there on outstretched wings, supported by the cliff's updraft. It blinked great yellow eyes and snapped an improbably large beak. It swooped overhead, darkening the landscape.

What by a god's god was that? It was the size of what his father had described as an airplane. But this was nothing to carry passengers! This--this dragon-sized thing was alive!

He stood there trying to shut his mouth. He shivered from head to toe. Birds he knew about, bats he had heard about, but he had never seen or heard of that!

The gauntlets had quit tingling as soon as the shadow had passed. They knew the monster hadn't seen him. What if it had? He shivered again, thinking about it. He searched the skies anxiously for some time, actually fearing to move from the cliff face. He looked down at where he had exited from the transporter chamber.

Jillip stood alone on the ledge. He was fumbling with his clothing, intent on relieving himself into the treetop. Fool kid! Didn't he realize that they'd be climbing down that? He could just as well have stood over against the cliff. The gauntlets resumed tingling, and grew warm. In a heartbeat it got dark again. The great something slid silently down, swooping like an eagawk.

Jillip seemed to sense it. He turned. He screamed. He tried to jump back. But he was too late, too slow. Huge talons plucked him from the ledge.

Men appeared from the rock face. "Scarebird!" Hester exclaimed. "Everybody back!"

They quickly crowded back into the chamber. Everyone except Kelvin and--

"HELLLPPP MEEEEEE!"

Gods, he was still alive! Because the scarebird had gone after Jillip instead of Kelvin. He had to help the boy! He had at least to try.

The gauntlets were ahead of him, activating the belt. He shot up at an angle like a stone from his sister's sling. Before he could draw breath he was up against a leathery neck the size of a tree trunk, breathing the stench of reptile and more terrified than he could remember ever being before.

But the gauntlets, his best friends, knew what to do. They put the belt in neutral. He looked at the unmoving wings carrying him and the creature, at the great beak and strangely shaped, gigantic head. Was this a bird? Even apart from the sheer size of it, it seemed alien. He was here to help Jillip, but maybe it was he, Kelvin, who needed help.

"SCCCRRRREEEEEE!" The creature let out a great scream or cry. It turned its beak, blinked its eyes, stretched its neck out farther, and--

Suddenly there was a slipping sideways. Kelvin saw the cliffs and the rockspears thrusting up. He hadn't time to think of Jillip or anything else.

He was tumbling, over and over and over. Quickly he slapped the control. The rocks loomed closer, and he hastily adjusted his course. Now he was flying just above the treetops.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

Kelvin winced in pain and accelerated with a push of the lever. He leaped ahead and was immediately out of the thing's reach. Looking back he saw a great head with a pointed top, dark yellow eyes the size of ponds, and a pointed, saw-toothed bill with something flapping from its hooked tip.

His back smarted. That was where the tip of the bill had scraped. The brown material in the beak was the exact center section of his best brownberry shirt. Kelvin considered that he now wore two arm coverings and that the fastenings in front had popped off as the flying thing's beak ripped away the back.

"SCCCRRRREEEE!"

"HELLLLLPPPP!"

Oh shut up! he wanted to say, but didn't. There was no help for Jillip. Unless, unless--

Kelvin climbed to a higher altitude, leaving the monster's air current. He circled above it, keeping the distance. Even when I fought dragons and serpents I had at least a spear! No spear now, and no way of getting one. Besides, if he could somehow kill this--this scarebird--Jillip would surely be killed in the fall. That might be inevitable anyway, but Kelvin didn't want to hasten it.

He shrugged out of the remains of his shirt and let the wind take away the ragged strips. Poor Heln, she sewed on that for a week. With normal use such a garment would last for years. There was a brownberry farm not far from the Hackleberry residence; he remembered that a little girl lived there. What was her name? Easter. Not that that related to him in any way, other than as a source for the material for another shirt. He hated to think of how upset gentle Heln would be with him when she learned about the shirt. Her life must be pretty quiet now, while she waited on the arrival of the baby.

Now shirtless, he must resemble those bigger-than-life cinema heroes his father had once described. Except that his chest was skinny and not bronzed and muscled the way a fictional hero's would have been. Had it been his place to pick a hero, Kelvin would have been at the bottom of the list!

He eased the speed of his flying and fell back, keeping the scarebird in sight. Oh, if it would only land! Then he might be able to swoop in and rescue Jillip. But it showed no sign of doing so.

Below, the terrain looked less and less like that of home. It was rougher and becoming more so. It was hilly, irregular, and forested, a lot like the way the fabled kingdoms of Ophal and Rotternik were said to be. Faint hope for any rescue here!

A tang filled his nose, erasing the memory of the reptile smell. Salt. The ocean was nearby, just as it would be at home in this region. Maybe that was good news, and maybe not.

He flew on, marveling at how fast they were traveling. The wind, that was what was making the scarebird soar and sail so effortlessly and so fast. The ocean updrafts, the air currents like sea currents, carrying this great, great winged ship. Sky ship--his father had used that term once in telling a story. That was what the scarebird was, only living. A living sky ship.

Now he saw the ocean, and still the great black kite sailed on. An estuary with great mountains of foam and towering rocks. Up the estuary, following the wild, great river that broadened until it was almost as wide as a sea itself. Then trees, gigantic trees! Trees such as Kelvin at his most imaginative had never dreamed of. The tree they had climbed was big, but compared to these it was scarcely a sapling. These were growing up from the water, reaching to the sky, and into the sky, each huger than its neighbors.

And circling, dipping in and out of enormous branches, were dozens of scarebirds! There was a whole colony of them here!

Poor Jillip! The kid's done! There's no rescue from this. I can't--

But somehow he couldn't leave. He circled in the air, like the scarebirds themselves, waiting, watching for the monster carrying Jillip to land. He saw that there were many of the monsters hanging upside down in the trees. Like bats, but big. Bigger than any bats or birds imaginable.

The scarebird flew to the top of a great tree. There, deep in the branches and foliage was a monstrous nest. Beaks the length of swords reached up from the nest, opening wide, waiting. Mama's coming. Mama's coming with your dinner.

"KEL... VIN! SAVE ME!"

So Jillip was still conscious, and in good voice. That suggested that he had not been seriously hurt, yet. He was looking back, and had spied Kelvin, urging him to do the impossible. Poor kid!

Kelvin accelerated, flew past the nest, curved, and came in low above the tree and just below some clouds. That gave him some cover. He saw ruddy throats, open. Those young were hungry!

The chimaera was telepathic. Could this other monster also communicate mentally? It seemed unlikely, but maybe worth a try. It wasn't as if he had a wide range of promising options. BIRD! Put down that man! Put him down unharmed!

"SCRRRREEEEE!

There was no indication that the scarebird knew his thoughts, or cared if it did. In its talons Jillip was now limp, having fainted or been killed. Those talons could have squeezed him lifeless at any time, unless the monster wanted to feed its nestlings live and squirming food. Kelvin hoped it was death, because to be alive when those ravenous chicks fed--he couldn't bear that thought!

"SCCCRRRREEEE!"

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! The little rascals were impatient. Would one skinny boy divide enough?

"Bird! Bird!" he called, feeling stupid. "I want to talk! As one rational creature to another!"

Did the monster hesitate? It was probably just deciding how to portion out the morsel. He doubted that the thing could talk. His father had told him of a talking bird in his frame of Earth called a polly, so maybe some did talk, however. What else did he have to try?

Jillip's head lifted. His arms and legs straightened. So he had only been unconscious, not injured. Now the very worst was incipient, and Kelvin saw no good way out.

"SCRRRREEEE! SCRRRREEEE!"

"You already said that," Kelvin muttered with gallows humor. He nudged the acceleration lever and got far closer than he wanted. It wouldn't help Jillip if Kelvin also became a meal for the chicks!

The bird spied him. The saw-toothed beak was more formidable than any sword. It darted at him now, the bird intent on grabbing him. It seemed to be well aware of the value of doubling its investment.

The gauntlets jerked him down. He ducked his head, snapped his feet together, and dived under the incoming head. Below the bird, Jillip's drained face looked at him in startled comprehension as he grabbed a leg the size of a normal tree trunk.

"Kelvin! KELVIN!"

"Shut up!" he said. It was a terrible thing to say to a desperate boy on the edge of losing his life, but necessary. He needed a moment to think, if the confounded bird gave him a chance.

As he might have expected, the bird turned, swooped, slipped, and dived. They were still well up in the air. Kelvin's position changed as quickly and bewilderingly as it might in a whirlwind. Sometimes he was right side up, sometimes upside down. The belt kept him flattened hard against the scaly surface with more than human strength.

He knew the bird would soon tire of this, and soar up and then in to the nest. He saw water below, and Jillip almost skimming it. Then they were rising again, rising with the air current. Now it would be climb, climb, circle, circle, circle, and in for a landing. What had he gained? He remained as clumsy a hero as ever.

As the bird straightened in flight he let go of its leg, and made a grab for the talons. He got hold, nearly upside down, and tried to will his gauntlets to pull up the great, powerful toes. The gauntlets tried; he felt his shoulders and arms take up the strain. But it was not enough. He tried kicking himself back from the foot with all his strength, but still the talon would not budge from the boy.

"Save yourself, Kelvin!" Jillip gasped. "My life is finished. My life's not worth your life!"

Sensible talk, but unfortunately late. Suddenly they were bouncing. Up and down, up and down. Branches the girth of a man's legs were slapping on either side of his face. They had come to a landing at last, on the rim of the scarebird's nest.

"CREEEE! EEEEEE! EEEE!" SNAP, SNAP, SNAP!

The chicks were eager for dinner. Their hungry cries were deafening. In a moment they would have their desire.

Kelvin slapped a branch out of his face and drew his sword.