She powered on the skimmer. “I’m leaving without you.”
He was unmoved. “No, you’re not. Let me just grab some calorie bars. We don’t know how their food intake’s been.”
The fresh rush of launching stalled, Aether’s mind drifted into the reeds of superstition, as though relief and excitement would cue a trapdoor to open beneath her. And then a clamor arose around her. Threck crewmembers scurried from all sides of the afvrik, hurdling over bins and the skimmer to amass at the front.
Translations streamed into her fone.
“Do you see them?”
“What are these?”
“Hynka!”
“Real ones, Hynka, alive!”
“Can’t see! Move!”
Her head well above the wall of Threck cloaks, Aether scanned the shoreline in a panic, spotting the small group of enormous creatures walking south. She closed her eye and zoomed to max magnification. A band of three individuals, one with a pronounced hunch and arthritic gait. All three wore thick, silvery furs.
“What do we do?” Pablo said. He’d joined her on the skimmer at some point. “She doesn’t look worried.”
Aether looked at him. “She who? Which? What are you talking about?”
He gawked. “Minnie! You didn’t see her?”
She blinked, choked and coughed, and shot her gaze back to shore.
“Behind them,” Pablo urged. “Maybe five meters.”
And there she was, full suit and helmet, eyes on her footing, hands free. Aether could even see the spritely outline of her face behind the visor’s glare. The delicate, if boyish, saunter. Pablo was talking. The Threck were talking. But it was all a distant drone. What was happening there on shore? She panned right, back to the Hynka. Still lumbering forward, one gestured down the beach, glanced back to Minnie, saying something. Minnie’s head rose, a second’s delay—maybe reading a Livetrans—and then she pointed the same way. The Hynka carried on.
More furor around Aether. Streaks of tentacles and rope.
“Can you please tell them it’s a terrible idea?” Pablo implored. “You heard what happened when they tried before!”
Aether surveyed the scene, watched Heshper doling out orders, Threck diving into the water with lengths of rope and stretching out one of the fishing nets. She scrolled through the stacks of unread Livetrans.
“Capture one… bring back alive… we’ll be celebrated… ready the nets… tighten the holds…”
Aether spotted Heshper, arms in the afvrik slits, shouting commands. Aether stabbed a finger to Pablo, shouted “Watch Minnie!” and marched straight to Heshper. “You’re going to try to catch one?”
“Yes,” Heshper said without looking up. “The journey will now have true purpose.”
“The journey didn’t need any more purpose than what was already ordered by Massoss Pakte. You’re going to get everyone here killed. Have you not heard the story of the bones in the Thinkers Hall?”
“All know this story,” Heshper replied. “These were not Fishers. Fishers capture afvrik bigger than six of those.”
“Afvrik don’t pull Fishers to shore and rip them to pieces! You think you’re just going to send some Threck to shore with rope, tie up one Hynka, and escort it back out here?”
Heshper’s eyes finally rolled up to Aether. “No. You will fly net over top, drop on head, and we will all pull.”
“So you wish to drown another one? Drag another big dead thing into the harbor? Is that what the city needs? Another set of bones to face the first?”
“We will bring it alive, as others could not” Heshper said coolly. “You will drop net, fly other rope to Tunhkset, both afvrik swim out, keep Hynka in net in middle.”
“That isn’t happening,” Aether said.
“We will see.”
“We will not see. We will not be flying any net or rope or anything other than our people.”
Heshper pulled her hands from the slits and stood up. “You will do as I order.”
“I will not.”
Flustered, Heshper eyed the crew, all now standing around to see how this exchange played out. Aether suspected they weren’t rooting for their boss.
Heshper poked Aether’s chest. “I will leave you here!”
Aether set a hand on her holstered MW. This moron wasn’t going to strand them all here just to bring back a stupid trophy—setting aside the pure absurdity of delivering an unstoppable killing machine to the city. This was now a matter of stubbornness, control, ego.
“Heshper,” Aether said with calmed posture. “Have you felt the skin coating my people are going to make for your entire city? It’s not so hot here, but your skin is visibly drying.”
“I know of it,” Heshper said, indifferent. “Slow-drying mud.”
Aether turned to Pablo, gaze fixed on the shore. “She still okay?”
“Yeah. They’re scoping out some kind of cave.”
“How much of the PJ did you bring?”
“None,” he said. “I… I didn’t know—Hang on! I have a tub of the real stuff in the medkit! From Earth.”
Wide-eyed, Aether beckoned him on. He pulled off his backpack, digging inside a moment before producing a fist-sized canister.
Aether opened it and scooped out a large glob, turning to Heshper. “May I? You should really feel what has the Thinkers and Council so eager for us to return and start making more.”
Heshper’s eyes popped in and out before slowly presenting an arm. Aether applied a thick layer to the driest area. The other Threck moved closer, beguiled.
“So you see?” Aether continued. “This is all we have left of it, but when we get back—all of us—we will deliver cartloads.”
“How does it feel?” an eager crewmember inquired.
Heshper touched it with her opposite club, held it up to a siphon hole. “Unpleasant scent.” She rubbed some more, spreading the edges thinner to reach uncoated flesh. “Better than mud… perhaps.”
Aether seized the moment. “Note the deep penetration, not just surface coating. While you consider, Pablo and I are going to discuss how to safely retrieve our friends.” She stepped away, yet containing her fury.
Twelve more days to relish with this jerk.
It was too bad this had to be Minnie’s first encounter with these people.
Aether joined Pablo on the humming skimmer. It was still on. “How is she?” She scanned the beach. The afvrik was much closer to shore—under 300m. No sign of Minnie or Hynka.
“Dark rhombus below rusty rock there. They’re inside. It’s not deep. I can see them all. She’s been conversing the whole time, back and forth. She looks like a real estate agent showing monsters an open house. What do we do? Nervous about just skimming on in there. No clue how the things’ll react.”
Minnie and one of the Hynka stepped out of the cave, side by side, into the sunlight. She looked so tiny beside it. Behind her, the other two emerged, looming above Minnie’s head like gorillas with a kitten. She trusted them enough to walk before them—to turn her back. Aether’s smile returned. Of course she’d established her own first contact.
“She’ll know.”
Aether went to max mag once more—Minnie’s body filling her view from helmet top to waist, as if she stood but a few steps away. She was looking up at the fur-clad Hynka beside her, elaborate hand gestures though her mouth wasn’t moving. Livetrans talking through her PA.
Aether set her focus directly on Minnie’s face, held her breath, eyes wide, no blinking, and sent a Direct Connect request.