"Here she is," I said, cupping her in both hands and holding her out to her father. Nimbus swirled forward, and for a moment, I felt his cool dryness playing around my fingers. It might have been a nudge of forgiveness; one cannot tell with fog, but I do believe it was more than just the bare minimum of contact required to take the girl. Then he was gone, and baby Starbiter was gone too, wrapped in a thick ball of mist.
"All right," Festina said, "now what about you, Lady Bell? Are you up for some fisticuffs?"
"I’ve heard," Aarhus put in, "that Cashlings are excellent fighters. Stunningly powerful kicks."
He said this so unctuously, even naive baby Starbiter must have recognized his words as purposeful flattery. Lady Bell, however, was not so perceptive; she loosened slightly from her wrapped-up form, with orifices fluttering all over her green skin. It looked like the Cashling form of simpering. "I can handle myself quite well," she answered in a creamily smug tone of voice. "If it’s absolutely necessary…"
"It is," Festina said. "Now let’s get down to the airlock. And once we’re outside the studio, no talking. The engines make enough background noise to cover our footsteps, but let’s not get sloppy."
"Sloppy!" Lady Bell said, continuing to unfold back to her more person-like configuration. "I am never sloppy."
Sergeant Aarhus opened the door and the odor outside assailed my nostrils. I believe we all wished to take exception to Lady Bell’s last statement; but it was too late for cutting remarks.
Silently, we headed for the receiving bay.
22: WHEREIN I BATTLE THE ENEMY WITH PRECIOUS METALS
Waiting
When I say we headed out silently, I mean as silently as possible. Though I am excellent at stealth in natural settings, it is most unreasonable to expect hard glass feet not to clack on solid tiles. The noise was enough to make me self-conscious; I also believe Lady Bell was glaring at me, though her lack of a face made it difficult to be certain. I mouthed the words, I am doing my best, then spent the rest of the journey staring down at my feet… which was just as well, considering the quantity of vile substances I had to circumnavigate on the floor.
Once we reached the receiving bay, we chose separate hiding places close to the airlock door. I took a strategic position between a chest-high crate stacked with platinum ingots, and a container made of blue sheet-metal whose interior was littered with fish skeletons. At one time, the container must have been filled with sea water — the metal was crusted with salt deposits and the dried remains of lacy seaweed — but the water had evaporated and the fish had died of dehydration… or suffocation… or starvation… or sheer lack of hope. I found myself staring at their withered carcasses and feeling most teary-eyed over their undeserved fate; so I forced myself to turn away and grabbed a chunk of platinum from the other box, promising the ghosts of those fish I would hurl the heavy ingot with great strength at someone who truly deserved it.
I settled down in my place, squeezing the cool platinum while I waited for Shaddill to arrive. It was too bad the hull was no longer transparent — I would have liked to observe the process of being sucked into the bowels of the stick-ship. But such was not to be. I could only crouch in Nervous Anticipation, trying to guess what was going on outside and doing a poor job of it. In my head I would say, Ten seconds from now, I shall hear something; but then I did not hear something, so I thought, Another five seconds and someone will come; but the five seconds passed without incident, whereupon I started counting to see how long it did take for something to occur, but I lost patience when I reached fifteen, so I crossed all my fingers and even my thumbs to force the Shaddill to do something, and I squeezed my eyes shut and everything… then I counted some more, then stared at my reflection in the platinum ingot to see how I looked when I was Fraught With Expectation, but there were too many smudges from my fingers on the metal, and I was just cleaning the ingot on my jacket sleeve when Unfettered Destiny struck something with a thud.
Hah! I thought to myself, this is it! And despite the terrible wait, I did not let my brain become Tired And Distracted at all.
The Enemy Arrives
Events did not transpire immediately. After the bump (which I assumed was our ship settling onto a landing pad), there was a tedious delay of at least ten seconds before I heard noises in the airlock. Then the airlock took an unconscionably long time to perform its function, so that I just knew the awful Shaddill were playing foolish games punching the control buttons for their entertainment rather than Getting Down To Business. At last, when I was so keyed with frustration I was ready to dash over and rip open the airlock with my bare hands, the door gave a resounding click and swung ponderously inward.
An object was tossed into the room: a dull silver orb the size of my fist, sailing in a lazy arc upward, then down toward the floor. The object had WEAPON written all over it… not literally (as far as I could see) but I knew something unpleasant would happen when it struck the ground. I squinched quickly behind the crate of ingots, putting all that heavy platinum between me and the silver ball. However, because I was still trying to keep silent, I did not move quite speedily enough — my right arm and shoulder were still exposed when the ball hit the floor with a clink.
I did not see or hear any spectacular result — no flash, no explosive boom. My unprotected arm simply went numb from shoulder to fingertips. I could see the arm was still there, but it had no sensation at all. Even worse, it had no strength; and that was the hand which had been holding the platinum ingot. Before I realized the danger, the ingot slipped from my limp fingers and dropped to the ground.
Clunk!
So much for lurking in secret. Without hesitation, I let forth a gasp of Poignant Distress and slumped into an aesthetically pleasing sprawl on the floor. Since I had accidentally revealed my presence to the Shaddill, I would let them believe they had bested me with their numbness device; that way they might not embark upon more drastic action to overpower me or my comrades. When they came to collect my unconscious body, I could still take them by surprise and rain punches on their villainous noses.
I lay where I was, cleverly opening my eyes in tiny slits to observe what was going on. At first, I saw nothing; but I heard heavy footsteps walk cautiously out of the airlock and advance in my direction.
None of my hidden comrades attacked. I did not know if they had fallen victim to numbness themselves or if they had been sufficiently shielded behind crates and were simply biding their time, waiting for the Shaddill to advance farther into the room. It was also possible there were multiple Shaddills to consider — if a single one ventured into the receiving bay while others remained in the airlock to provide covering fire, the situation required delicate handling. As for me, all I could do was lie still and wait… until I saw a pair of feet step around a box some four paces away.
They appeared to be human feet. More precisely, they were feet wearing human-style boots — very much like the boots both Festina and Aarhus wore.
Sturdy navy-issue boots.
A Ghastly Realization
The boots took a step toward me. My head lay at an angle that prevented me from seeing more than the person’s legs… but they looked very much like human legs enclosed in human trousers. Gray trousers. Gray trousers exactly like Festina’s — the color that denotes an admiral in the human fleet.