"Mayday, Mayday," Carlos said with calmness that he really didn't feel. "Is there anyone out there?"
The air was so thick with bees that it was hard to see. Then the swarm lifted, and Shangri-La appeared through the haze. Bodies lay strewn in the streets, dotted with black shapes. Bees.
Jesus. You could watch the bodies melting.
"Mayday—"
"D-daddy?" They heard it. Katya's voice.
"Baby? Where are you?"
"I'm in the toolshed next to the rec room."
"Isn't there anyone in the rec room?"
"No one that close," she said. "I can't get out. I don't have a blanket. Daddy, the blankets work! They keep off the bees!"
"I see. Shh. Stay put, darling," he said.
Justin looked at him. "How are we going to get her?"
"In this," Carlos said. He started his engine again. The skeeter screeched as it lifted from the ground, and listed sideways, counterrotating slowly. It weaved, barely in control. The tail swatted against another skeeter, and Carlos cursed as he worked them clear. They climbed to rooftop level, fighting for control every inch of the way. Fire blossomed below them, smoke and flaming bees filled the air. The drumming sound above him was bees exploding in the rotors.
"We're going down again," he muttered. He aimed the autogyro at the rec room. When they crashed through the wall Justin jolted forward, smacked his head against the Plexiglas window. He groaned, seeing stars brighter than burning bees. They spun and the sheet-metal rec-hall wall buckled. The tail of the autogyro sheared and the battery ripped free. Wires from the rec-hall frame ripped across the battery, and sparks showered. Bees exploded in midair, and the swarm lifted for a moment as thousands of them caught fire, popped, showered sparks and flaming speed everywhere.
Carlos's door popped open. He grabbed a Cadzie-blue blanket and wrapped himself in it. Justin grabbed one of the Kevlar safety sacks, and smashed his way out of his side of the skeeter.
They had to cover their faces with blankets, but they groped their way around the rec hall—smoldering now, as flaming bees sped this way and that, zipping like meteorites.
And this was a blessing in disguise. The bees had dealt with fire before, and had evolved a tactic to deal with it. They spread out, made it more difficult for the flames to spread from one to the other...
"Freeze it!" Justin cried. "Get Katya out. I'll be right behind you!"
They made it to the toolshed door. Carlos pried it open, and Katya shrank against the wall. She was sobbing, but seemed unhurt. Carlos threw a safety sack to her. "Hurry! Get into this."
She crawled into the sack, and as she did, Justin hurriedly inventoried the shed. And there it was—a weed burner. Its nozzle would spray liquid fuel in a thin blazing line. He sloshed the tank, and found it only half empty.
"Get her the hell out!" he screamed. "Communications should be secure!"
Carlos didn't argue, just slung his daughter over his shoulder. "We'll never make it!" The bees were thick over there.
"Yes, we will." Justin lit the pilot on the weed burner. He pumped fuel through it.
He spun, sweeping the air with fire. Bees exploded, setting their neighbors aflame. Carlos had to turn his head away from the shower of flaming pseudocrustacea.
The bees thinned in instinctive response to flame.
"Come on!"
Robor had only been airborne for ten minutes when the first bees hit them. They batted against the metal struts, and chewed harmlessly at Robor's external skin. Sylvia watched them slap against the main windows. Some bees cracked open, leaving a smear of green and red. Most just bounced away, spiraling stunned into the void.
Carey Lou's voice crackled over the intercom. "Watch out for bees in the skeeter rotors. Evan blew up. Can you hear me?" He sounded desperate.
The corner of Sylvia's eye caught lights flashing red in front of Hendrick, just before a muffled whump shuddered through the ship. Too late? Sylvia felt like an idiot. "Of course! We read you, Carey."
"What the hell do we do?" Hendrick watched a new rush of bees crash against the window leaving blood and slime behind.
"Kill the motors!"
"Done. Sylvia, I think Skeeter Three is a deader."
A shower of tiny comets was drifting past the windows, exploding as they fell. Robor lurched sideways, then began a slow, ugly spin. Sylvia fought to stay calm. "They're thicker near the ground," she said. "Kill the skeeters, pump more gas into the bags, and climb."
Two skeeters still lived. Their rotors slowed within rings of fire.
Stopped. Flaming bees spiraled past the front window like dying stars.
Hendrick flinched back. "They can't get in," Sylvia said. "Another fifteen minutes, and we'll be above them. Then we can start the skeeters again."
"Gauges say we lost our tail engine," he said pessimistically. "I don't know... "
"We've got two left," she said. "And they'll just have to be enough. Three hours, maybe four... I just hope the kids can survive that long."
Ruth was covered in blankets from head to foot. She knew where she was going, and didn't need to lift her head. She had walked this path a thousand times.
The chamel pen.
Something was going on behind her. A sputtering of flame. She could hear it, but she didn't dare look. Her toe stubbed something. Bones. She couldn't look, couldn't let her fear overwhelm her. It would have been entirely too easy.
Her hands, swathed in blankets, touched the chamel pen. "Tarzan?" she called, and then raised her voice more, hoping that the blankets didn't muffle it too much. "Tarzan!"
She had seen the chamels changing color, and guessed that they would be alive and safe. When she heard a tentative pawing to her call, she knew that her favorite was alive. More to the point, even in the midst of this horror, Tarzan still responded to her.
Something was nuzzling her hand. She didn't dare look. She was terrified at the thought of what bees could do to her eyes. Behind her, fire flared like a lightning strike. Bits of flaming bee spattered her blankets. She groaned in terror, then recovered and climbed across the fence. Tarzan let her mount him, then moved toward the locked gate. She reached out and felt her way to the gate, undid the latch, and Tarzan nudged it open.
Instantly the chamel tried to gallop for open space. She turned him around by wrenching with all of her strength, and started him back into the camp.
She was disoriented, and had to risk a peek now, no matter how much she loathed the idea. With one blanket-swathed hand she peeled up a slit in the blanket, just barely enough to admit light. Good. There was the mess hall, and there the quad... and there was the shack where Edgar would be.
Tarzan, camouflaged in blue, made his way slowly across the encampment. Around him bees flew, panicked now. One of the buildings had finally managed to catch fire. When wind blew bees through the flames they exploded, carrying the destruction farther. The only thing that saved them was the dampness of the wood. Flaming bits of bee landed in the moist wooden slats and smoldered or sputtered to greater, more dangerous life.
When Ruth reached Edgar's storage shed, she turned Tarzan, and climbed carefully off his back. She pulled down on his reins, and jerked. The chamel bucked up in the air once, twice. His heels slammed back into the door, chipping and then splintering wood. The door ripped free from the jamb.
Ruth heard Edgar scream. She hurried to him with the second blanket. He wrapped himself in it, and she helped him to his feet. Then she helped him onto Tarzan, and climbed on after him. She risked a peek to orient herself. The radio shack. They had to make it that far. Something crawled into her makeshift cowl, and she struck at it, felt it bite her. She grabbed it with her fist and squeezed as hard as she could. It wriggled and popped.