IGMS Issue 10 Page 6

  "They're closing the blast doors," Anduval said, "sealing the palace."

  It had not been fifteen minutes since the warning had gone out. The people who lived in the nearby forests hadn't had time to reach the palace. Tallori's mother and father probably hadn't even learned of the danger yet.

  Suddenly Anduval's eyes lit up, and he shouted, "There is one thing that we can do!"

  He turned and raced down a hallway toward his laboratory, and Tallori struggled to catch up. She found him at his console, where he grabbed the navigation system -- that ball of crystal shot through with wires of gold and silver and veins of turquoise and crimson.

  Anduval sprinted to the holy maiden's meditation chamber and found that the doors had been thrown wide open.

  The skraal courtesans knelt before her chrysalis, that great mass of yellowing bone.

  One of the skraals was pounding upon the chrysalis as if to break it with his fists, while the courtesans all chanted in reedy voices like woodwinds, supplicating in their musical tongue, "Waken, O' Holy Mother! Waken, O' Bearer of Light!"

  But all of their pounding, all of their prayers, would not waken Seramasia, he knew. It was too early for her to waken, perhaps months or years too early.

  He strode to the base of the chrysalis and held up his own orb, as if to show it to Seramasia. But in fact he only needed to get it near her skull.

  "Back away," he shouted to the skraal supplicants. "Get back, all of you!"

  Confused, the skraals began to retreat, and Anduval pressed the power switch on his navigation unit, and pleaded.

  "Wake up, great lady. Behold the danger. Our enemy approaches."

  He held the device near. He knew what it should do. Active sensors down in his laboratory were constantly mapping space for a light year in every direction.

  Sun, planets, moons and meteors -- all would be thrown up against the backdrop of space.

  And the image would pierce the holy maiden's mind, show her the advancing threat. Even in her deepest sleep, even in her comatose state, Anduval hoped to reach her.

  Whether Seramasia could do anything to stop the cycor, he did not know. Most probably, if she became aware of the danger at all, she would only be able to shrink away in horror and despair.

  Magus Veritarnus stood at his console, peering up at the star field, and struggled to come to grips with his imminent death.

  The cycor ship had grown large. It was less than a tenth of a light year distant, according to the sensors. He could see it clearly, a large dark orb rushing toward them, like a black pearl.

  Inside that orb was a black hole, sucking all light and matter into it -- all but the cycor warship, a silver needle that floated ahead of the great pearl.

  The cycor ship defied the laws of physics as the magus understood them. It should have been sucked into the black hole.

  Ah, he thought, but there you have it. Death is a mystery. Should it not come in a mysterious fashion?

  He watched the field growing steadily. The warship was slowing, decelerating at a fifty G's. Yet still it seemed to be rushing upon them.

  In a heartbeat, the whole ball shifted barely, as if making a course correction, and a puff of blue smoke issued from the silver needle as if something had exploded.

  Instantly the ship disappeared, as if swallowed by the black hole.

  For a long moment, the magus merely stood, heart pounding, unable to accept his good fortune.

  A malfunction, he thought. That is the only explanation -- a mechanical failure aboard the cycor ship.

  The black hole had turned, and now was veering away. It would bypass the Danai entirely, and exit the solar system in a matter of hours.

  In the hallways, warning horns were still blaring.

  But suddenly a new sound arose, a clarion call like a thousand flutes and oboes, a song sung by skraals only upon transcendence of a holy maiden.

  She has left behind her pharate form and ascended to imago, the magus realized.

  Magus Veritarnus whirled and rushed to worship at the feet of the new Holy Mother.

  Seramasia broke from her chrysalis. She did not do so with a pounding of fists, with kicks or shouts. Rather, a fierce light sprung up, suddenly playing through the corded ropes of bone, sparking in hues of gold and green.

  After merely a tenth of a second, the chrysalis burst outward, and within the effluvium crouched Seramasia, blazing with a light so fierce that Anduval was forced to cover his eyes with his arm. Tallori shouted in awe.

  Every bit of Seramasia was as clear as crystal. Every bit of her was filled with light whiter than the sun. Not in ten thousand years had such an imago taken form.

  "Holy mother!" Tallori cried out, breaking into tears.

  The skraals raised their voices in triumph, singing to the goddess, their voices rising like woodwinds in a symphony of praise.

  "Fear not," the Holy Mother Seramasia called out. "The cycor threat has been overcome!"

  From all through the palace, people came running -- skraal teachers and physicians, the old human women who mopped the floors, the chefs and servants.

  The people broke into song, their hearts breaking with relief and joy.

  Last of all came the magus, striding through the halls, his black robes flowing out behind him. Amid the shouts of praise and wonder, he clapped Anduval upon the back, and whispered in his ear, "Should we thank the god that saved us, or the man who made the god?"

  Anduval glanced at his mentor and smiled in satisfaction. "Our world is full of enough heroes," he said. "Let Seramasia take the praise."

  That day, the parts to the prototype of the worldship came together.

  The hull that was floating out at sea, towed by a great-masted sailing vessel, and it suddenly broke free of cords and rose slowly into the air. Two thousand miles away, the propulsion systems cracked through the roofs of their warehouse. From all across the world, pieces rose into the sky and raced through the heavens, until at last they rested in the blue skies above Shadowfest.

  When the pieces had all fitted themselves together, the ship hovered in the sky, and at sunset Anduval found himself rising up through the dense foliage as easily as dandelion down borne on a summer wind.

  A blast of wind greeted his upturned face.

  Seramasia floated above him, a great light in the sky, while Tallori and the magus and dozens of technicians and scientists from the palace went rising up, too.

  Stores of food floated up as well: great casks of water, sacks of grain, all of the fruits and vegetables of the field, and all things that might appeal to a skraal.

  At the edge of the world, a sliver of red sun straddled the horizon, an ember among darkening ash.

  Down below, the sounds of the jungle rose up from Shadowfest -- the squeals of colossus boars, the rumbling call of a growler, the shrieks of flying reptiles.

  Anduval reached the hovering ship, and entered the threshold, wondering what to do.

  He felt a touch in his mind, and heard Seramasia's voice. "Be at peace, my truest friend, and rest, for we have far to go."

  Anduval took Tallori's hand when she arrived, and he felt content. Together they walked through the ship's corridors, up to the navigator's console.

  The Holy Mother Seramasia was at her seat, resting easily, and as the ship smoothly accelerated out of orbit, she peered up into the field of stars displayed on the console above.

  The ship veered, and set a course -- not for the far dark reaches beyond the borders of the galaxy, but toward the void at the galactic center.

  "Of course we cannot run," Anduval whispered aloud, for he too had been touched by a dragon's dream, and the dragon dreamt of vengeance.

  On the dry days on Danai, the damselflies take their maiden flights, rising into the summer morn in all their glory.

  Lightning bolts of blue, bright sparks of molten fire, the small creatures from the marsh take leave of the earth and climb the sky on trembling wings, tiny hunters on the wind at last.

&nbs
p; The Fort in Vermont

  by David A. Simons

  Artwork by Nicole Cardiff

  * * *

  I'm at my lab bench in my summer bio class, studying one of Michael Decker's arm hairs under my microscope. It's round, light brown in color, with scattered pigment granules and a surprisingly thick cuticle sheath. The cortex is much thinner than my father's hair -- almost transparent, which surprises me. I decide to get another sample.

  I edge toward Michael, scouring his hairy arms and hands for another loose shaft. Michael's eyes are fixed on our professor, Dr. Lefebvre, who's giving his pre-lab lecture, explaining how to run antibody gels without contamination. Dr. L knows I'm not listening -- the little high school girl, playing with her microscope again. But he also knows that I've done all the reading, that I'll ace the lab, so he lets it slide.

  I spot a curly, dark shaft on Michael's hand that appears loose, and I reach for it slowly, grasping it between my thumb and index finger.

  Dr. L abruptly stops talking, something he rarely does, and I look up.

  My father is standing at the door. I pull away from Michael and straighten.

  Dr. L chats with my father quietly, his back to the class. Michael turns toward me, raises his eyebrows, and I shrug. One of the girls at the next bench giggles, covering her mouth with her fist, her fake pearl rings hanging in front of her nose like globs of snot. Like I'd care.

  "Rachel," says Dr. L, "you're excused. Go with your father."

  I pocket the slide with Michael's arm hair, wipe off my bench top, and walk to the door. Dr. L pats my shoulder twice as I pass, then turns back to his lecture.

  My father's in emergency mode: eyes narrow, lips tight, jaw thrust forward, saying nothing. He walks quickly, navigating through the maze of laboratories as though he's been there more times than I have. I notice he's wearing gloves, even though it's June. When we get to the car and turn on the radio, I find out why.

  The virus has reached Boston.

  It's a hemorrhagic fever, like those Ebola and Marburg viruses that wipe out small villages in Africa every now and then, only this one's airborne. It emerged from the Congo a few months ago, raced through a few African cities I'd never heard of, then spread to Asia, Europe, and Australia. According to the news guy on the radio, Mass General now has its first patient in quarantine.

  My father, of course, is well prepared. When we arrive home, the Odyssey is already parked by the fountain, and boxes are lined up in the garage, ready to load. He starts filling the van's tank with his reserve gas supply and sends me upstairs to pack.

  My two usual suitcases are sitting outside my bedroom door. I fill one with my microscope, wrapped in jeans and a fleece, and the other with everything else. I lug them to the van then go help Stevie.

  Stevie had an hour head start, but of course, he's hardly begun to pack. He's sitting on his bed, bouncing a tennis ball off the Frogman poster on his bedroom wall. Our German Shepherd, Chase, sits on the floor next to him, snapping at the ball each time it passes. Clothes, videogames, dog toys, Hostess cupcake wrappers, and other little boy crap are scattered across the floor, piled around his empty suitcase. When I open his door, he catches the tennis ball and pretends to throw it at me, grinning.

  "Dad's in emergency mode," I say. "Get packing." Stevie stops grinning and throws clothes into his suitcase, still holding the tennis ball. Chase thumps his tail expectantly. I push the dog out of the room and help Stevie pack.

  An hour later, we pile into the van. My father and me in front, Stevie and Chase in back with the suitcases and boxes.

  And so, by the time the mayor comes on the radio to reassure the good citizens of Boston that there's nothing to fear, that the virus won't spread here like it has in all those poor countries, we're already peeling out of town, heading west on the Mass Pike toward our fort in Vermont.

  Our Vermont home is in a mostly empty region called the Northeast Kingdom, up near the Canadian border. We've got two hundred acres, with a decent sized house, a barn, a small pond, an apple orchard, and a bunch of solar panels, all screened off by an electric fence.

  It takes five hours to get there from Boston, so we don't arrive until after ten. I'm ready for bed, but my father will have none of that. He marches us down to the cellar to retrieve his disaster crates.

  Our cellar used to stow wines and cheeses and, sometimes, in-laws, but now it's a warehouse. My father's stuffed it with rows and rows of metal bookshelves, all loaded up with these orange plastic crates, hermetically sealed, labeled by disaster type.

  He's got crates for nuclear attack, hurricane (in New England?), tsunami, polar ice melt, power grid failure, and of course, virus outbreak. There are also shelves and shelves of bottled drinks and canned foods, and a locked cabinet with my father's guns.

  We pull out a dozen of the "virus" crates and haul them up the stairs, one at a time. Stevie and I struggle with one, him walking backwards up the steps, me bearing the weight. Chase squeezes by Stevie, nearly bowling him over.

  "Can't we let Mario and Julie do this in the morning?" I ask, after the second load.

  "I've sent them home," says my father. "The property is quarantined until the virus clears." I'm too tired to appreciate what that means.

  After we finish with the crates, my father sits us down at the kitchen table and hands us each a laminated sheet of paper titled "Virus Procedures."

  "New house rules," my father begins. "We follow them until the outbreak ends."

  I learned long ago not to interrupt my father during one of his rule rants, so I sit quietly, rubbing the laminated page between my fingers, wondering what it would look like under my scope. I hold Stevie on my lap, one arm wrapped around his chest. He's wired -- Vermont in June, no summer school, up past bedtime -- and his butt squirms across my thighs. Only the dog escapes the lecture. He circles his kitchen bed twice, farts loudly, and plops down for the night.

  "No one goes outside the fence, and no one enters," my father says. "We eat only canned food from the cellar -- no fish from the pond and no apples from the orchard.

  "Wash your hands when you come in from the outside. Thirty seconds, under hot water, then alcohol gel. If you touch any wildlife, leave your clothes outside and shower on the porch."

  "How long are we gonna stay here?" interrupts Stevie.

  "Until the virus is gone. Maybe weeks, maybe years."

  "Cool!"

  I scan the rest of the list. Mostly common sense, if you know anything about viruses, and some of it is just plain silly. I slide Stevie off my lap and stand.

  "Sit down Rachel," my father says. "I'm not finished."

  "I'm going to bed," I say. "I promise I'll pass the quiz in the morning." I get halfway to the stairwell.

  "Rachel," my father calls, his voice low. I turn around.

  My father is not a physically imposing guy -- he's kind of short, with thinning hair and a bony forehead, and he wears these steel-rimmed glasses that are straight out of the 80s. But he has this twitch that he does when he's angry. His right arm flexes, making his bicep tendon stick out like a wire, and his fingers curl and uncurl, almost to a fist. He did that for days after my mother's accident, and a few times since. He's doing it now.

  "Don't test me, Rachel," he says. "Not now."

  Stevie stares at me, suddenly still, his mouth open.

  "Fine," I mumble. I say something else under my breath, sit back down, pull Stevie back to my lap, and let my father finish his damn lecture.

  My father hasn't always been this way. He used to be a computer programmer. Geekier than me, even. He designed security systems for large computer networks, built up a Fortune 1000 company, made piles of money.

  When I was seven, he bought me my first microscope. It was one of those toy plastic kinds with a fixed eyepiece and disposable slides with no cover slips. I looked at everything through it: orange juice, drops of blood, flower petals, insect wings, and my baby brother's poop. I especially liked hairs. My hairs, my mother's dyed
hairs, hairs from my father's comb, hairs from my friends at school. When I pulled out one of my baby brother's hairs, my mother was furious. Yelled at me. But my father didn't. Instead, he snipped another clump from Stevie's head and bought me a better microscope.

  But after my mother's death, things changed. He became convinced that some big disaster was going to turn the world upside-down, make all of his money useless. So he sold his company, turned our vacation home into this fort, and became whatever it is he's become.

  After a week at the fort, we settle into a routine. In the mornings, we do chores and maintenance. Normally, there are full time staffers -- Mario and Julie -- who handle all the upkeep, but since my father won't let them on the compound, we do all of it ourselves. My father takes care of the fence and the satellite dish and the other machinery, and I do the laundry and the food prep (mostly opening cans and heating things). Stevie's too young to be useful, so my father tells him to take care of Chase and stay out of the way. I let him weed dandelions from the flower beds and dump trash down by the fence.

  In the afternoons, we do schoolwork. I'm keeping up with the readings from Dr. L's class and boning up on virology. I also tutor Stevie an hour a day. He doesn't do well in school, but he has ADD and dyslexia, so it's not really his fault. My father's solution is to give him drugs and make him go to summer school. I just think he needs motivation. He says he wants to be a vet, so this week, I'm teaching him dog and squirrel anatomy.

  The virus has broken through the Mass General quarantine, and there are several dozen reported cases now, so it looks like we'll be here awhile. I send Dr. L an email, telling him that I'll likely miss the rest of his class. I ask him when the TV movie will be coming out (our private joke for virus panic). He writes back right away, and his email surprises me:

  Dear Rachel,

  I'm glad to hear you're safe in Vermont. A lot of parents have pulled their kids from class, and I don't blame them. This virus is nothing like the Hanta and influenza strains that hit the last two years. It's something completely new, and much more lethal.