Phthor (24 page)

Aton, Vex, and Coquina had united in the fashion of a normal human family and were barricading their warm cave. Outside it the giant wolf like creature prowled, seeking some way to enter. It was the same one who had almost killed Vex before and lain in ambush for Arlo’s party hardly an hour ago. He remembered: Fenris the Wolf was Odin’s mortal enemy. That wolf would kill Odin at Ragnarok.

Chthon was still following the script.

On the surface of the planet, known as pretty Idyllia, another confrontation was occurring. Old Doc Bedside had emerged from the depths to seek out older Benjamin Five, and Benjamin had come forth to meet him in single combat. The two, according to Arlo’s first vision of the future, were mortal enemies. In mythological terms they were Loki and the white god Heimdall, possessor of the great Horn of Ragnorok. Both would die.

All through the planet, the battle was being joined. There would be intolerable mayhem, if he did not stop it now.

But could he stop an entire planet?

Arlo extended himself, drawing on his newly integrated abilities. He had, he realized, tapped into the same reservoir of power that the § drive used, the binding force of the universe. The problem was to translate it into usable energy, to control it and channel it and focus it as required. § was there, virtually infinite, but his being was a very small aperture for its expression.

He closed about Benjamin and Bedside, freezing them in place; he halted the huge wolf at the home-cave; he stopped the Lfa near the gas crevasse. He started on the minionette army, but it was too much to compass all at once, and the girls weren’t doing much real harm, so he let them go.

Now he reached out for Chthon. Through the rock he quested, searching for his friend. Chthon! Chthon!

I am here, friend. Just like that, complete communication!

We are in Ragnarok, from which none will survive. The battle must cease.

Life must be exterminated, Chthon replied. It contaminates the galaxy. Only when this region is clean can we associate with our companion-intellects in the universe.

It meant the other mineral sentiences inhabiting other galaxies. Life is sentience, too. Arlo argued. One sentience may not destroy another. Sentience in any form is sacred.

No. Only mineral sentience.

And why should he have thought that Chthon would be amenable to Life’s logic? If we do battle, you may be destroyed. We must compromise.

There can be no compromise with Life. And Chthon’s utter loathing of the Life-slime came through like a blast of heat.

This is not reasonable! Arlo protested.

It is not reasonable, Chthon agreed. It is absolute.
    
“Arlo!” Torment cried. “The Midgard Serpent comes!”

Arlo refocused his attention. She was right; the supermonster was chewing its way through the rock, breaking open a new passage—straight for Arlo’s cubby. There was no question about its objective; he saw in its mind that it knew him as the enemy fisherman who had teased it with the vision of food and attacked it with the myriad of annoying Xestlets.

In fact, it had been informed of him long ago. Once it had been an innocuous, if gigantic creature, running about its maze, feeding on the animals it trapped. Then Doc Bedside had touched its mind, instilling in it an abiding hatred for all things human, especially those with minion blood. It was not intelligent, but it had strong telepathy; it could tell the difference between human and minion. In this manner, Bedside’s mad brain had fashioned its malevolence. The doctor had done the same thing with the cavern wolf. The children of Loki, truly!

Arlo oriented on it, but the monstrous serpent resisted. Its mind was somehow insulated, perhaps by the sheer mass of itself, and required more than token suppression. Arlo concentrated, bringing it to a halt—and lost control of the rest of the battle. His tiny human brain simply could not handle sufficient energy for everything at once.

Benjamin Five held a scythe, Doc Bedside a scalpel. Benjamin’s weapon was much larger, but clumsy in this context. He normally used it for clearing the weeds from a potential hvee bed, setting up for crop rotation. Bedside was extremely swift and accurate with his little implement, and he could throw it if he chose. But he was aware that if his throw missed or failed to score vitally, he would then have little defense against the scythe.

The two men were mortal enemies. Bedside had taken Benjamin’s nephew Aton into the netherworld, and killed Aton’s son Aesir. Benjamin had “sounded the Horn” summoning the minionette army for the invasion of the underworld. Now they would settle the score as it had to be settled: individually. The hate of each for the other required this ultimate satisfaction.

Cautiously they circled each other, each looking for an opening. The beautiful flowers of vacationland Idyllia surrounded them: Benjamin unconsciously stepped around them so as to injure none, while Bedside consciously trod them into the dirt. This was no sports match; this was sheer hate.

The wolf pawed at the rocks barricading Coquina’s cave. The thing’s metal-hard claws caught the edge of the stone and sent it scooting down the passage. Now a gap was open. The wolf jammed its gross snout through, but its head was too big to fit.

Aton stood on one side, raising the double-bitted ax. Vex stood on the other, holding one of the stalactite spears. He would go for the nose, she the eyes, while Coquina remained as bait in the back of the cave. Just before they struck, Aton and Vex glanced at each other, to coordinate their attack. But it became another lingering look of longing, in the presence of Coquina, for which both were ashamed.

It would be well, Arlo thought dispassionately, if Vex died. Painful as that would be, it would resolve the problem her life presented. Better to mourn for her than to die for her.

The Lfa reached the gas crevasse, well toward the bottom.

It lifted an appendage, concentrated, and developed an electric potential between spread antennae. A fat spark jumped. The massed gas caught, sending a flash across the chasm, illuminating the void blindingly, showing the sheer cliffs above and below. But the gas was too cold, too rare; in a moment it extinguished.

The Lfa raised its appendage again. If the first ignition did not take, the second would. Or the third. Each flash would warm the pit until the fire could be sustained. Then—inferno!

The EeoO pool was shifting and flexing, almost ready to shape into its new entities. But the sucker-creature had reached that pool. It lowered its proboscis and began to draw.

Arlo wrenched his power back to the diverse locales of battle. He froze men, monsters, and Vanir in place lest Ragnarok pass the point of no return. And the dragon, loosed, advanced. With teeth and claws and sheer forward momentum, it pulverized the thin partitions of stone that separated the warren of passages. The entire region shook with its progress, and stalactites broke off and fell in a wide radius. Its breath was burning hot, blasting the dust and gravel out in a turbulent cloud before it. The Midgard Serpent!

Arlo was in a quandary. The dragon was too massive and powerful to control with just part of his mind—but if he focused his full attention on it, Ragnarok would resume elsewhere. He had to stop both the battle and the monster, or fail totally.

He could kill several of the smaller individuals—Bedside, the Lfa, the pool-sucker—but that would only serve to aggravate the poisonous animosities that had generated this schism. Peace through murder was no peace at all! He had to suppress, not hurt, all combatants, until a lasting compromise could be achieved.

For a moment he let the dragon be and stopped the battle. Chthon! he cried mentally. Abate your attack! We must talk, compromise! For the sake of the friendship we have had—

But Chthon would not answer—and that was answer enough. The cavern entity would not bargain or even listen. Its determination was implacable, and his friendship with it illusory. And the awful rumble of the serpent drew closer.

In sudden fury Arlo released the rest of the caverns and directed a devastating shock at his personal nemesis, the dragon. It halted, momentarily stunned—and Benjamin swung at Doc Bedside, the Lfa struck another spark, and the sucker-monster drew in a snootful of the EeoO pool. Aton and Vex struck together at the face of the wolf. Arlo was conscious of it all, for his awareness required only a fraction of his power.

Bedside stepped back, letting the scythe blade pass harmlessly. Then he lunged forward, scalpel extended. The gas crevasse lit up again, more brightly than before, with sheets of incandescence rising almost to the high ceiling. The EeoO gave a poolwide quiver of anguish as its substance entered the digestive tract of the sucker. And Fenris the Wolf sent forth such a mighty howl of aggravation that the three people in the cave fell to the floor, hands over their ears.

Quickly Arlo clamped his control on again. That stopped the critical encounters, though the tiny Xests still ranged and the minionettes had flushed a surly caterpillar.

Now the Midgard Serpent resumed. Arlo could not use his mind against it again, lest Ragnarok proceed. He would have to fight it physically.

“What are you doing?” Torment cried, seeing him heft the Hammer in his Gloves.

“I must slay the monster,” Arlo said.

“You must be protected!” she said. “I will fight Midgard!”

He kissed her once more, while his mind saw all the minionettes at once, like multiple images of her. Yet she was distinct, for she shared this adventure with him, and she alone was normal. She was worthy of his love. “This is for me alone. Take the chippers and sledge, make your way to the surface. Tell the forces of Life that Ragnarok must stop, even though I may die.”

She hesitated.”But you haven’t given me my children!”

She wanted him, not the children. And he wanted her. But there was no time. “Any man will volunteer,” he said. “You are lovely—throughout.” Then he touched her with his mind, and she had to go. She jumped onto the sledge, took the reins, and started the chippers on their way.

The wall burst apart. Stones flew into the cave, striking the chippers, killing them. Torment was knocked from the sledge. Choking vapor filled the cave: the foul breath of Midgard.

The monster’s eye spotted Torment as she took a rolling fall. Its tongue snapped out, bloated and gummy. It plastered itself against the woman, adhering to her struggling body. Like a buzzing fly she was drawn into the twenty-foot mouth. The teeth closed, crunched. Arlo felt the momentary agony of her death.

His future with Torment was gone. Fate had not permitted this small change.

Arlo clasped his Hammer in both hands and brought it down on the nose of the monster, now in range because a serpent’s face is smallest when its jaws are closed. The head of the Hammer sank deep into the leathery skin, gouging a hole. The monster let out a deafening hiss of affront, but opened its jaws only enough to bite Torment’s body into quarters for ready swallowing.

The nose was no good: too soft. He had to strike the skull! But how could he reach it, since only the snout was in the cave?

Now Torment had been swallowed. The jaws opened wide again, making the mouth fill the cave. A few drops of blood fell from the teeth. The monster snapped at Arlo, but lacked room to maneuver and missed him. Irritated, it crashed its head against the ceiling, knocking it out and tripling the size of the chamber as loose rock fell aside.

Now it could take a decent bite! The jaws opened so wide that the upper teeth became a vertical wall. That wall advanced on Arlo.

Arlo backed away as far as he could—and stumbled over something. It was the Xest’s box. It overturned and the frozen mass of the Taphid slid half out. No longer completely frozen—the ravenous creatures were beginning to stir.

Arlo scooped up the box as the terrible jaws closed. He hurled the Taphid mass into the maw, down the throat of the serpent. As the mouth closed convulsively, triggered by that small mass, Arlo saw the interior heat of it melting the remaining ice into slush.

“Let that be your reward for killing Torment!” he shouted. But his eyes were moist, and not merely from the stinging vapor. Torment!

Now he sprinted for the cave opening. Pain shot through his sliced-up foot where Torment had extracted the venom of the salamander. Arlo stumbled.

The monster lurched forward in pursuit, ramming its head through the cave exit and bursting the remaining wall and ceiling asunder. Its mind oriented on its fleeing prey. It belched, a few wriggling Taphids emerging with the gas. Relentlessly it followed.

How long would it take for the Taphids to consume the material within the serpent’s mighty gut and start on the serpent itself? Arlo could not guess, for the monster was so tremendously massive, and he could not stay around to watch.

He was not far from the world-encircling tunnel of the dragon. He ran for it, gritting his teeth against the pain of his leg. He passed through the opening that the monster itself had made, skidded in a man-sized dropping, and crashed into the bottom. Now he had a clear route—but he could never hope to outrun the creature in its own warren. Provided the serpent remained in good health...

But he knew the caverns because of his total awareness. And he knew the monster would be delayed, having either to turn laboriously about, or carve its way through the rock to return to its natural path. That gave Arlo a head start.