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emergency stores and other supplies. And a flame thrower. I worked as fast as
I could, though it seemed like years before I got the flamer and the aid kit
tucked into my shirt. I suppose it only took a second or two; I know the Sound
didn't seem to notice, I let it take me faster and faster along the ways.
Every time I passed a dukkurbox I jerked it open, laying a trail as long as I
could. I collected two more aid kits just in case. The Sound got louder and
louder. I took out one of the kits and opened it without looking at it or
thinking what I was doing. Closed my hand about the anahastic spray. I fumbled
the kit closed, shoved it back in my shirt and ran along the way clutching the
small can.
When the Sound finally pulled me off the walk into the jungle maze, I shot a
gout of anahastic at the wall and marked my trail with it every tenth swing of
my arms, getting this into muscle knowledge so if the Sound got so strong it
canceled brain-think, body-think would keep laying down the splotches of
spray. Anahastic flouresced under torchlight; anyone following me and I hoped
(down deep, not letting myself think about it) that half the SP's on the ship
were after me by now would see it.
The Sound pulled me deep into the jungle until I finally came to one of the
larger spaces and saw IT. A monster fungus that had hundreds of small holes
all over its orange and green body. It moved all the time, like a cloud of
smoke in a gentle breeze. I saw later it had grown up over one of the fan
holes that kept the air moving in the Insul. At the moment all I knew was that
the thing was singing to me from a hundred mouths while long ropy tendrils
that grew in explosion patterns about several such sphincters were wrapped
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loosely about Qessara, that fibers along these arms were punched into Qessara
into her eyes, her mouth, into her skin. That thousands of tiny red spiders
swarmed over her, liquifying her so the fungus could suck her dry. There were
other husks of skin and bone scattered about the space, rustling dryly like
fly bodies about a spiderweb.
The sound called me closer and closer. More swarms of red spiders were pouring
out of the singing holes. I couldn't have broken free if I tried. I didn't
try. I saw Qessara being drained by that thing and I went berserk, running at
it. The tendrils brushed at me, trying to get a hold of me, but I was doing a
dance more desperate than any of Qesarra's and they only brushed at me. I
didn't feel the jolts that were supposed to paralyze me. I got the flamer out
and turned it on Qessara. Her arms went black, her sleep robe caught fire, her
hair burned. The tendrils smoldered, then burned. The torch that was Qessara
fell against the thing and it screamed. The sound blew me back, addled my head
worse than it already was, but my body knew its work. I held the flamer on the
thing, held it there flaring full out, held it even after I'd exhausted its
fuel.
I would have died like Qessara because the wetness in it kept quenching the
worst of the fires. The tendrils charred and flaked and fell away, but the
nubs were still there. Parts of the surface boiled and dripped down, but one
flamer would never have killed the thing. It was huge filled up that space
and flowed into other spaces half a kilometer around. I did minor damage,
made it hurt, but ten men with flamers wouldn't have dented the thing. I
didn't die. The Worao acted fast when the dukkur alarms started sounding. An
SP team went into the ways, followed the line of alarms, then found and
followed the anahastic trail I'd laid down. They came charging to the rescue
with more flamers and a pair of sonic disrupters. They blew that horror into
fragments and fried the fragments, then spent the next several cycles flushing
the most powerful fungicides they had through the Insul. I didn't know
anything about that until a lot later. When I came out of what it'd done to
me, turned out I couldn't stay in a world ship any longer. The hurt had gone
too deep and there was the thing about Qessara. The Worao were grateful enough
to put me in therapy on Feyurnsha and leave enough credit for my treatment and
reeducation, though that didn't work out quite the way they planned, I didn't
turn into a docile productive Feyurnit. But from the day they landed me to
this, I've never gone back on a world ship and I never will.
AFTER A BUSY NIGHT, SKEEN COLLECTS A FOLLOWING.
Skeen woke the next morning in a warm and sweaty tangle of flesh with Hal
suckling at one nipple and Hart playing with the other. Hart laughed when he
saw her awake, yelped when her fingers found his not-hair and tugged. He swung
over her and began raking his fingers along her ribs. She bucked vigorously,
slithered away, slippery with sweat though weak from giggling. She was
ticklish all over and the four Aggitj youths had discovered that with much
glee, which she repaid in kind when she found that fooling with their not-hair
sense organs drove them even wilder.
Much later they swam in the river, ducking and diving, splashing each other.
The Aggitj were seals in the water agile ivory, rose, and gold seals narrow
limber bodies beautiful in their watery arabesques.
She came out of the water sputtering and laughing, half drowned, feeling lazy
and scrubbed clean inside and out and full of energy and languid as a worm
three days dead. She rubbed herself dry with one of the blankets, pulled on
her wet underwear, shook out the eddersil, and got dressed.
Breakfast. Bread, cheese, a handful of plums, the last of the ale. Clean-up.
Bury the coals, shovel dirt in the craphole, scatter leaves where their
night-wrestling had messed the ground and grass. The Aggitj did the work.
Their movements had the flavor of ritual and they sang a droning song while
they worked.
Skeen sat in the saddle watching all this activity with interest and some
impatient. She couldn't see they'd made any great mess, but the Aggitj were
very serious about what they were doing. Timka had been much the same way
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about their camps, eyeing Skeen with disfavor when she started to leave before
the place was put back close to what it'd been before they came. Skeen wanted
to leave now, but she owed them more courtesy. Good kids, limber and loving
and sexy as hell. She felt like their mother, well, maybe not their mother,
considering the games they'd got up to last night. She had enjoyed herself to
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