Slowly, I lowered Esticus until his feet touched the ground. Perhaps Immu thought I was preparing to let her husband go… but in my mind’s eye, I pictured punching the little brown Shaddill in the nose, smashing the mandibles all around his muzzle, hearing the crack of bones as they shattered under my fist.
And yet… and yet…
How did I know I would not kill the hateful fur-beetle? Perhaps smashing his mandibles would do lethal damage. And for all that I was blazing with righteous indignation, I did not wish to murder shaky wee Esticus. The League would then murder me… and I did not care to die so stupidly.
Was there anything I could do to vent my wrath, yet not kill a weak Shaddill one?
Yes.
Changing my grip on Esticus’s wrists, I whirled him around by the arms and slung him into the fountain.
Splash
I did not throw the furry alien, but swung him like an ax: holding his arms and sweeping him across the pool’s surface so that he scooped up a great sloosh of honey that flew in a frothy tsunami. It was fortunate I did not get any splashes on me… but I was wearing my Explorer jacket, and the few drops of spatter that came my way hit fabric instead of skin.
Neither Immu nor Esticus fared so luckily. I had aimed the husband perfectly at the wife — the thick wave of crimson scooped up by Esticus hit Immu full in the face, drenching her head and all down her front. She squealed in terror and jumped backward, trying to wipe honey from her fur; she squealed again when she realized she now had the liquid on her hands. Her eyes bulged horrified as she stared at her fingers… for as she watched, one of her claws melted into soft purple and fell plop to the floor.
Esticus was no better. From the waist down, he was soaked in honey; and his pelt had begun to bubble, sloughing off fur as each little hair dissolved into goo. The skin underneath was already turning puffy. I let him fall to the floor and leapt back to make sure I did not get the honey on me. He staggered to his feet almost immediately… but the dirt where he had landed was covered with a glossy slick of purple and the part of his body that had touched the ground looked like its hair and skin had been shaved off clean.
Howling, "Help me!" he turned to Immu; but his wife was in no condition to help anyone. Her entire head was turning purple — all but those bulging eyes, because she had blinked them shut just before the Blood Honey struck her. Now her eyelids were gone, turned into goo that slid off her eyeballs and slurped into the general morass of her face. Her cheeks dripped onto her chest; her forehead was slumping into a great overhanging brow that would soon flop down and cover those raw exposed eyes.
A raspy laugh gurgled in her throat. "All right," she whispered to Esticus, "I’ll help you."
She reached toward him and gave his hand a squeeze. Though her head had turned to slime, her arms and legs were still mostly intact; she let go of Esticus’s hand, scooped him off the floor, and held him to her disintegrating chest. The motion shook dollops of jelly loose from Esticus’s legs, laying bare the bone underneath. Then Immu flexed her powerful haunches for one last great leap.
Husband and wife plunged together into the pool.
The Cost Of Salvation
The Shaddill’s jump did not take me completely by surprise — I had enough time to hurl myself backward out of range of their splash. Festina was far enough removed too, and protected by her uniform; patches of the gray cloth looked wet and glossy, but no splashing honey landed on her exposed head or hands.
There was only one problem: Festina was still choking. Even as I watched, her body went limp and tumbled clumsily into the dirt.
"Villains!" I screamed at the Shaddill, now decomposing in the fountain. They were totally immersed, and totally coated with purple, but I screamed at them anyway. "Call off your nanites, you poop-heads! Get them out of Festina’s windpipe!"
No nano cloud emerged from my friend. I could see no sign of her breathing.
"Stick-ship!" I yelled in Shaddill-ese. "Tell the nanites to leave my friend! This is an order — obey me!"
No response. I ran to Festina and knelt beside her. When I opened her mouth, a gold nanite glow shone from the depths of her throat… but the actual blockage was too far down to see, let alone to reach with my finger. Anyway, how could I remove the obstruction if it was made of billions of tiny robots, all following orders to strangle my friend? If I did manage to sweep some away, they would simply rush back into place.
I needed a means to fight the nanites directly. I needed nanites of my own.
"Nimbus," I said aloud.
Leaping to my feet, I rushed to the webby blobs that held our companions. With so much honey splashing around, the blobs had been struck with spatters… and wherever the honey had touched, the webby surface had dissolved into jelly. Praise to the Hallowed Ones! I thought: the blobs must be made of living matter, susceptible to Blood Honey. Now all I needed was a tool…
Festina’s stun-pistol lay on the floor a short distance behind me — she had dropped it when she saw it did not work on the Shaddill. I grabbed it and poked the metal muzzle into one of the purple patches on Nimbus’s cocoon. With a twist of the wrist, I flicked the jelly off the gooey surface; the result was a small hole where the jelly had been. Even better, the gun’s metal barrel did not seem affected by contact with honey… which meant I could use it to dig into the blob that held Nimbus prisoner.
For Festina’s sake, I hoped I could do it quickly.
Wrapping my jacket around my hands and arms to avoid getting stuck on the blob’s gluey surface, I pushed the cocoon holding Nimbus to the edge of the fountain. Once I had the cocoon in position, I dipped the pistol’s mouth into the basin, got it wet with red liquid, then prodded it into the blob’s exterior. The sheen of honey on the gun’s barrel ate into goopy webbing, turning it to a gel which could then be flicked away. This was not a speedy process — the honey did not corrode the goo nearly as fast as I wished — but little by little I deepened a hole into the blob, telling myself all the while I would soon free Nimbus.
A part of me realized this might not be true. If Nimbus’s little misty bits were all trapped separately, like millions of bubbles in a solid block of ice, I could never carve them loose in time to save Festina. But if there was one big chamber in the middle, a single holding area like an egg, and all I had to do was pierce the shell to let the cloud man out…
A great gust of mist shot out from the hole, straight into my face. It felt cool and kindly, a fog of salvation. "Nimbus!" I cried. "There are nanites down Festina’s throat! You must clear them out and start her breathing again."
I expected the cloud man’s mist to swoop immediately toward Festina; but it only wisped around and around, swirling close to me, then shying away again. "Clear them out?" Nimbus whispered. "How? I’m not designed for fighting other nanites. I couldn’t begin to take on warrior nano…"
"These nanites are not warriors, you foolish cloud, they are just translator things. But they will kill Festina unless you take action."
"It’s not that easy, Oar!" Mist was all around me, wreathing my head, brushing my cheek. "My only way to stop the nanites is smashing my particles against them. High-speed collisions that will hurt me just as much as the nano."
"Are you such a coward that you fear a little pain?"
"I’m not talking about pain; I’m talking about mutual destruction."
"And I am talking about the death of my friend!" I swept my hands at him viciously, trying to push himaway from me. "You are a healer, are you not? Festina needs healing. That is all you have to think about."