Chapter Eleven

1.

The small group walked together towards the hazy silhouettes of the riders, making their way through piles of burnt prawns. Up close, they looked even more unsettling, if thankfully very dead. They had the legs and tail of a terrestrial prawn, but two long appendages in front that terminated in knifelike points. Their mouthparts resembled densely packed pincushions, if the pins were reversed and dripping with mucus. Their only normal parts were the two eyes, but even those were multifaceted and alien.

Dragons seemed positively tame by comparison. Certainly, less disquieting.

The dank smoke from the peat fires curled around them as they walked, stinging their eyes and nostrils. It was oddly silent. Arnaud began coughing once again, but even that sound was cushioned into stillness by the mists and the bog.

But less than a hundred paces away, twelve latter-day dragons were waiting for them.

Five more paces and the smoke unveiled the opeme. As tall as giraffes, their long necks bobbed about, almost appearing nervous. Not that Annabelle believed they were, considering each of the humans would be barely a mouthful. Still, she’d once had a horse that was deathly afraid of butterflies despite weighing in at half a ton. It made her feel a little better to consider that the opeme might have similar instincts.

The humanoid riders displayed no such fear, however. They stood at military attention in a half circle in front of their mounts, long lances held upright. Up close, the riders resembled the Skreelan to the same extent that the opeme resembled birds. They had the long muzzle and lizard like tail, but with small arms and disproportionality thick legs, which lent them the appearance of a slender kangaroo with a reptilian head. Their skin was smooth and grey, more like a snake’s than the rough lizard hides of the Skreelan. As if in protest at this bland uniformity, they sported a number of differently coloured symbols and squiggles, very much in appearance like the graffiti that they had found on Collins’ safehouse.

At first glance their strangest feature was their glassy eyes, which appeared to bulge outwards like a fish. Then Annabelle realised that they were all wearing oversized aviation goggles. They must have made those themselves—anything acquired from human crews could not possibly have fit them correctly.

The lances had a constant flame on the end and a bulb on the bottom, making them look for all the world like a gigantic scallion someone had lit on fire. As they three approached, one of the riders squeezed the bulb on his lance, making the flame shoot up into the air a good twenty feet. His neighbour seemed displeased, whistling angrily and showing rows of small but quite evidently sharp teeth.

Other than that, they only thing that resembled clothing was their rather dapper leather vests which had numerous bulging pockets and a long curved gaff dangling off a lanyard. The rider in the middle whistled abruptly, then pointed at Nathanial with his gaff.

“Human. Come,” he chirped in moderately understandable English. It was almost like listening to an intelligent parrot, an impression heightened by the birdlike way the rider cocked his head as he spoke.

Behind them, the riders closed their half circle. A few fired their lances into the air, meeting no disapproval—from each other at least.

Nathanial bowed slowly. “Greetings, sir. You have met our kind before, then?”

The lead rider turned his head to regard Nathanial with the one eye. “Yes. Serve human. Other human sent us. Rescue.”

Nathanial shot his friends a quick look. “You mean you’re here to take us someplace?”

“Cannot stay. Keepers of the past come back. All die. Must come. Understand?”

“A bit,” Nathanial said. “So, you’ve come in peace and all that, got it. Very appreciated, especially the bit where you seem to have saved our lives. But where do you want to take us?”

The lead rider cocked his head to one side to the other without replying. Nathanial wondered if any of that had gotten through. The rider’s command of English seemed rudimentary at best. Which raised a question.

“Tell me, this human you’re working for, is his name Collins, by chance?” Nathanial asked. “We’re supposed to be looking for him, as it happens.”

“Collins!” whistled the rider. The other riders shifted around in apparent nervousness. “You Collins friend?”

“Erm…” said Nathanial, wondering if saying yes would be a complete lie. He really wasn’t good at dissembling, even to aliens with limited language skills.

“Best of friends,” said Arnaud. “Very good friend, yes?” He poked Nathanial in the ribs. “Lead to Collins, if you please.”

“How far is Collins?” Annabelle asked. “Where?”

The lead rider turned to face the woods and pointed with his gaff. “Fly to the city. Not far.”

“But we’ll have to walk.” Nathanial said. “Which gives us the added difficulty of trying to avoid our little friends out there. Perhaps you could take him a message for us while we stay here and catch up on our reading?”

The lead rider shook his head.

“Surely,” said Nathanial, “you can’t mean for us to hop up on your mounts there.” He stared into the implacable eyes of the lead rider. The rider blinked his nictitating membranes a few times, but was otherwise completely unreadable. Nathanial knew what a non-answer meant.

“You don’t mean for us to ride with you, do you?” Nathanial said. “That’s mad. We’ll fall off!”

“Not fall,” the rider said. “Is made for ride.” Again he gesticulated with the gaff. “Quick quick. Please to get on.” He clicked his jaw a few times. “Sir.”

“A bit of politesse,” Arnaud said. “Perhaps not ready to be the courtier yet, this one, but I think it is good enough for the middle of a prawn infested bog.” He sniffed the air. “One that seems to be on fire, I might add. I am voting for going with these gentlemen. What is the worst outcome?”

“We could fall off and die,” Nathanial said. “Those damnable Lilienthals were enough for me.”

Annabelle was gazing at the opeme with rapt eyes. “They’re beautiful. Please, let’s accompany them.”

“Volcanoes are beautiful, yet somehow I’ve never felt the urge to swim in one,” Nathanial pointed out.

“Tcha, they’re perfectly under control. Besides, we are here to meet Collins, aren’t we? He’s obviously safe.”

“Or in a stewpot.”

“I do not think that our friends here would bother to make his acquaintance if they were planning on making him dinner,” Arnaud said with a cough. “The habits of our late friends on Ceres notwithstanding.”

“You two are really all for hopping on the back of a flying saurian?” Nathanial said, a sick feeling of anticipatory vertigo creeping its way into his belly. “So, I’m a coward?”

“Not a coward,” Annabelle said, slipping her arm through his. “Simply trying to be the gallant protector. But honestly, I suspect that it can’t be that dangerous or Collins wouldn’t have sent them. And I can hardly walk all that way without…” she trailed off, looking at the eishaus.

“Ah,” said Nathanial, his apprehension being replaced by guilt. Of course she couldn’t walk that far without help.

Wasn’t the health of his friends a major part of why they were here? Asterium could certainly cure Arnaud, or at least abate his cough. No wonder Arnaud was willing to risk a flight. Who was he to stop him? True, they might be chasing nothing. Arnaud’s experiments aside, the curative properties of asterium were still a huge unknown. But it showed promise.

And then there was the matter of tissue regeneration on a grander scale. He turned to look into Annabelle’s earnest eyes. The girl had no idea about that, of course. He’d be the last to bring up false hopes. He preferred to keep his unrealised dreams to himself. But that didn’t mean he didn’t try to steer his way towards them.

Yet, for all these grand schemes of his, he was prepared to dash them on the rocks of his cowardice.

To the devil with that.

“Nathanial, you’re thinking, aren’t you?” Annabelle said.

“Guilty as charged.” He squared his shoulders, discovering to his surprise that the action in fact made him feel almost brave. “And you’re right, I’m sure we’ll be safe with these fellows.” He tried a subtle nod towards the eishaus. “Tell me, do you think we should bring—”

“No,” Annabelle said. She gnawed her lip for a while. “It should just be the three of us on this expedition. I think it’s safe, but if the world always met my expectations, well, I fancy it would be a duller place to inhabit.”

“A safer one, to be sure.”

Annabelle smiled. “Same thing, really.” She looked thoughtful. “I learned that lesson when I was young, you know. The Apaches never committed all their men at once. There was always a scout or two who hung back.”

“Right, that makes sense,” said Nathanial. “The old notion of a reserve, ready to leap in and provide support if needed.”

“Or to bring word of their deaths.”

Annabelle had gone from near playful to distant, as if her mind were a literal million miles away and a good number of years. Nathanial had never really sat down with her and asked about her time among the American aborigines. Then again, he had the definite impression that it hadn’t all been one big Rousseauian lark. He did know that they’d murdered her parents. But still, she had lived among them for years. Had they become her people after a while? Loyalty could be a strange thing.

“Clever people, those Apaches of yours,” he said.

“Clever by half, yes. But they taught me early on that people from across the world were still people in their own way, no matter how different their customs.”

“I suppose you miss them at times.”

Annabelle pursed her lips. “In the end, it was horrible what the Army did to them. It was borderline mass murder. Most of them didn’t deserve it.” She paused, a dark look sweeping her face. “But a few of them did,” she said in a quieter tone. At the enquiring look from Nathanial, Annabelle visibly shook herself and continued. “It’s hard to see the larger picture when some things were so personal.”

Annabelle stared into the distant smoke for a long moment, then turned to face Nathanial. “In answer to your question, no, I don’t miss them. There’s far too many of them I wanted dead.” She grinned without mirth. “Be careful what you wish for.”

Nathanial didn’t have anything to say to that. “Let’s go, then.”

“Yes,” Annabelle said. She laughed abruptly.

“What’s funny?” Nathanial asked.

“I just thought about my lifelong wish to have a flying pony. And here we are!”

Nathanial stared at the opeme with their long, crocodilian mouths. “I see what you mean about the danger of wishes.”

2.

Despite their earlier impatience, the riders took their time getting the opeme ready. No doubt for good reasons, they seemed unwilling to move quickly around the monstrous creatures, giving them the appearance of performing in an underwater ballet as they checked harnesses and halters. Four of them stood facing the burnt perimeter, occasionally firing off long bursts of flame from their lances.

Arnaud seemed fascinated by this. “It is a confirmation of my thoughts,” he explained. “Look at the lances carefully, and what does one see? Nothing, that is. No seams, no drill marks, nothing that would tell of how it was constructed.”

“So, you think it some sort of advanced technology?” Nathanial asked. He did enjoy seeing Arnaud so earnestly intrigued by a conundrum. It was a fresh change from the fellow’s affected indifference. To be fair, an illness like his would take the stuffing out of any man.

“In a sense, perhaps, if Mother Nature can be said to have her own form of technology. See the traces of a root structure? And that bulb, it is part of the original plant.”

“You think there is a flame throwing tree out there somewhere?”

“Why not? The Australian eucalyptus tree explodes periodically. Brush fire, fooomph! No, do not cast that look at me, it is a truth. So is it not a small step from bombs to guns?”

“You do have a point. If there are reeds that are natural flutes, why not trees that are adaptable to flames? Some sort of explosive sap, like your eucalyptus.”

“Indeed,” said Arnaud. “But here is the thing that is bothering me. There is no conceivable advantage to the tree itself, oui? I am thinking it might have been cultivated into this current form.”

“Or perhaps we’ll encounter a grove of flame throwing trees, able to shoot flame and bring down any wayward flying beast that should be so foolish as to visit.”

“Ah good,” said Arnaud, “I was afraid that I was the only cynic here.” He clapped Nathanial on the back. “Shall we go join the resident bold young lady before she flies off without us?”

3.

For her part, Annabelle wasn’t feeling especially bold as she stood next to the opeme. There was just something about that mouth that unsettled her. That something mostly had to do with its size, of course, although one could make a good case for the protruding sharp teeth adding a certain frisson to the whole ensemble.

The creature sprawled out on the ground as its rider fussed about with its hackamore, which allowed access to the saddle, or rather what functioned as a saddle. Looking closer, she realised the deep carriage seat was actually a horn growth at the base of the opeme’s neck that looked as if it had been pruned into shape. It seemed surprisingly functional, complete with a wide cantle back that hopefully would keep rider and passenger from tumbling out in turbulence.

Looking up, she discovered that the creature’s head was all of an arm’s length above her, sniffing the air as it eyed her steadily.

Annabelle inhaled deeply for courage, and slowly reached into her reticule for the packet of biscuits. She offered them to the opeme, taking care to avoid getting her hand, arm, or for that matter, any other part of her body in the way.

The opeme gobbled them down with a vigor completely at odds with any actual culinary merit the biscuits might have had. But to be fair, Annabelle had never tried eating the wrapper as well. Perhaps it lent the necessary spice.

The opeme cooed like a two ton dove.

“Like that, did you?” Annabelle said as the creature nosed her. She held her skirt down as it sniffed the ground underneath her. She was reminded of a dog she’d had when little that was convinced that women concealed a private larder beneath their crinolines. The pup had always been a source of amusement for her when the ladies’ auxiliary came to pay their occasional calls upon Uncle Cyrus. But this creature was a bit more problematic. She didn’t feel like being upended.

Annabelle leaned against the opeme’s head to shove it away. It seemed to take this in good humour, bobbing its head up and down like a bird, but ceasing its search for any additional treats that might be on her person. She stroked its neck and received what she hoped was a pleased cooing in return.

Perhaps she’d been right when she’d told Nathanial that the opeme was nothing more than a flying horse. After all, the horses of her youth had out massed her considerably. If a safe were to fall upon one’s head, it would make little difference to the victim whether it weighed in at a half ton or two tons. The key was more in the temperament of the beast. She’d certainly prefer to give a horse a cuddle than a badger, after all.

“Weren’t those my biscuits?” Nathanial asked from behind her.

“You’ll have to take it up with him,” Annabelle said. The opeme was using one of its wing claws to clear out a remnant of the package stuck between its rear teeth. “Possession is nine points of the law, you do realize.”

“‘Property is theft’ is more the aphorism that comes to mind,” Nathanial said. “I’d be careful. Simpler creatures don’t always make the distinction between what gives them the food and the food itself.”

“I don’t think it simple,” Annabelle said, going back to stroking the opeme’s neck. Its skin was as warm as any mammal’s. “This is no dumb and lethargic lizard, I think. For one, its tack is quite rudimentary, meaning that they control it more through signals than brute force. Not that controlling through force is really an option with something this size. In any event, anything that trainable is clearly intelligent.”

“You do have a way with the native fauna. But speaking of the Venusian ecosystem, we truly need to leave. Sooner or later those flame throwers of theirs will run dry and the prawns will doubtless return.”

“I’m ready.” She leaned over to whisper. “Have you seen Thymon?”

“I’m afraid not. But I’m certain he’s had time to escape. Yet another local creature who finds your charms irresistible, eh?”

Annabelle glared. “He’s not just some creature, he’s a person. Perhaps my ‘charms’, as you call them, are simply my ability to see him as such.”

Nathanial looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, but you have to admit it can be hard to see a seven foot tall monster in the same light as one’s favourite spinster auntie.”

“And what of K’chuk? Did you not consider him a person?”

“Absolutely not. He was an ant. An intelligent ant, but an ant nonetheless.”

Annabelle shook her head. “He gave his life for us, Nathanial.”

“I have not forgotten, and will always be grateful to him. But I still cannot think of him as a person. If you can see this opeme here as a horse, you’re better than I am.”

“Perhaps in a way,” Annabelle said. “But a horse can’t fly, unlike this beastie here. That’s bound to give it a different outlook on life.”

“That and it’s the size of a giraffe. Carnivorous, too, judging by those teeth.”

“Omnivorous. He likes biscuits, remember? Speaking of which, have you any more?”

Nathanial rolled his eyes and produced a packet. “Try to ration them.”

Annabelle tossed one into the opeme’s waiting mouth. “There. I want him to remember that we hand out treats periodically. Inspires the little fellow to keep us around, rather than trying to buck us off in midair or some nonsense like that.”

“Or eat us outright. Don’t forget that possibility.”

“Don’t roll about in butter and sugar, and I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“I shall take that under advisement.”