Maybe.
Maybe we were safe for as long as there was pink snow on the ground.
Or maybe that was just a false connection. Maybe there was something else going on here too
We just didn't know.
A pink light in the sky pulled me back to the present. It looked like a warm glow behind a veil of smoke.
"I can see the blimp!" I hollered.
As I watched, the glow began to assume brilliance and color and even a hint of size and form. Then it became a cluster of lights. They grew brighter. The blimp moved out of the darkness and became a gaudy, cigar-shaped, rose-enveloped presence. The air glowed pink around it. Its brightest lights were banked along its belly; rows of spotlights, swiveling and pointing in all directions. The crab was a smaller cluster of beams and auras hanging just below.
The ship hung in the sky like a vision-like an angel. Its rays came sweeping through the pale haze like fingers from heaven, turning everything luminous. The beams poured from the sky. They were beautiful! One of them touched me in passing and it was almost too bright to look at.
The whole world glowed with the light-the land, the drifts, the stark and barren trees. Everything looked ghostly and iridescent. Even the dark worms and the darker body of the chopper. A line from something floated through my head. God came out at midnight. I could see him floating in my sky.
All around us, the worms were stopping what they were doing, turning and looking upward. Some of them even backed away from the chopper for a better view. They were puzzling at the light in the sky, trying to make out what it could be-but there was no focus there. No edges, no shapes, no lines-only the light. The beautiful, brilliant, dazzling light!
I felt a surge of joy in my chest and in my throat. My eyes started to water. "It's beautiful," I said.
"What?" asked Lizard.
"It's beautiful!" I called: "I can see the lights of the blimp! It's the most beautiful sight I've ever seen."
"How far are they?"
"Uh-" I brought myself back to reality again. "It's hard to tell. Maybe a kilometer. Maybe two."
"They're past the trees," Lizard said. "They can fire the harpoon any time now."
Something puffed from the bottom of the crab. It hit the ground with a muffled thump and a large cloud of pale powdery smoke rose from the point of impact. The crab slid down the line and disappeared into the cloud, leaving four thin lines hanging in the air, stiffening against the pull of the blimp.
"They got it!" I called. "They're moored."
"Not yet!" Lizard called back. "Two more to go."
The crab released the anchored line and scuttled sideways across the pink drifts. Almost immediately, it disappeared into them, marking its passage by the three lines still anchored to it. They cut through the powder like fishing lines through water-they trailed a moving cloud of brightly glowing dust.
Abruptly, the crab appeared again, coming up suddenly on a rise. Its motion was mad-even comical-but it was fast. It scrambled quickly across the ground, varying its gait to match the terrain: it bounced, it crawled, it scuttled sideways; it paused, it backed up, it dipped and tilted; it tiptoed around a pink lump that once had been a bush-then dashed down the opposite side of the slope in a rapid spurt of action.
The bunnydogs were frozen. The worms stared.
The crab picked its steps like a ballet dancer. It moved like a lunar walker. It raced like a thoroughbred. If it could have cooked, I'd have married it.
It stopped inside another pink drift. The whole powdery area glowed with its light. There was another bright puff-another harpoon-and another line was anchored. This time when the crab came scuttling out, it was trailing only two lines back up to the blimp.
It headed directly toward the chopper now, directly toward two of the largest worms. Their eyes blinked as it approached.
It hesitated only a moment-then dashed directly between the two of them. Their eyes swiveled to follow this small presumptuous machine. It passed between them so rapidly they nearly twisted their eyes off. Only after it passed their tails did they remember to be surprised and leapt around to stare at it again. Was that a Chtorran double take?
One of the worms cocked its eyes curiously-the "hand-puppet expression" was getting very familiar-and started to follow the crab tentatively. The crab swiveled a spotlight toward it-and the worm backed away quickly. I started to giggle. It was funny. These monsters had to mass several tons apiece-and they were startled by a hyperkinetic machine?!
The crab had already scuttled sidewise around the chopper. I swiveled around to watch it disappear over-no, through-one of the steepest drifts of all. Its powdery light gleamed in the distance. It was moving as far from the chopper as it could to provide a long third leg for the tripod of mooring ropes. After a moment, I saw the now-familiar puff of smoke, and a few moments later, the crab scuttled back, trailing only a single line. Our lifeline.
"All right," called Lizard. "They're ready if we are."
"Wait a minute," I called. "Something's happening."
The worms were swiveling their eyes upward again-to stare at the blimp. The airship was moving onto station directly overhead. Mother! That thing was huge! And bright! The air around it didn't just glow-it shimmered.
The blimp was a giant pink egg that filled the sky. It hung there like a gorgeous UFO, pouring light down on all of us-the pale powdery drifts, the stubby bunnydogs, the darkened chopper, and the curious worms.
The worms
I couldn't tear my eyes from them. They shone incredibly in the glare from above-they looked luminous. They looked like they were made of electricity. Their fur rippled in waves; the stripes on their sides seemed to shiver and shift with red and purple iridescence. They looked as if they were lit from within. They glowed with pink auras.
The airship was pulling itself into position by adjusting the length of its mooring lines. It was a tricky maneuver because the pilot also had to keep the ship pointed into the wind. The display boards on its sides were flashing with bright stripes and colored patterns and even a crawling message: HEAVY LIFTING IS OUR BAG. OREGON AIR-LUMBER. Then a moment later: PAUL BUNYAN RESCUES U.S. ARMY. PICTURES AT ELEVEN.
The worms were fascinated by the sight. They turned around and around under the blimp; their eyes were angled upward, blinking furiously. They circled in the clearing, oblivious to everything else; they bumped into each other again and again as they tried to track with the airship. The bunnydogs had to scramble to keep out of their way.
"They're going crazy," I called. "Something about the blimp-"
And then one of the worms stood up. It raised itself almost its entire length. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. It reached futilely, frantically for the blimp. It stretched its arms upward in a pleading gesture-
I thought of pictures I'd seen of New Christians trying to touch the robes of The Apostle.
-and then the worm opened its mouth and let loose the most incredible sound I'd ever heard from the throat of any creaturea long, high-pitched, warbling-wavering, strung-out-forever wail of hope, desire and despair. The sound was maddening.
And then the worm fell back down into the dust. It toppled backward, writhing; its two rows of pitifully tiny feet waved in the air for a moment; and then it scrambled around madly trying to right itself-trying to reach for the blimp again.
I felt sorry for it.
The other worms were trying to lift themselves toward the blimp too. They stretched their arms and cried. They wailed. They worshiped.
"I don't get it-" Lizard said.
"I do. The blimp looks like a worm. A big bright friendly worm-" And then the second, deeper part of that realization hit me. "-A giant, floating, dazzling, vision of a worm! An angel hanging in the sky! Pouring light! In their own image! It looks like a god to them!"