Odysseus had to whip the unwieldy spear back quickly after each thrust to keep from having it torn out of his hands. Still shouting, the man stepped backward and seemed to trip over the bloody grazer carcass, rolling on his side.
The uninjured Terror Bird saw its chance and took it, leaping six feet into the air and coming down on Odysseus with talons and killing claws extended.
Still rolling, Odysseus came to one knee in a single fluid movement and planted the butt of the spear in the ground an instant before the Terror Bird came down on it with the full weight of its body driving the bronze point home, up through its muscled chest, into its awful heart. Odysseus had to roll again to get out of its way as the huge creature crashed lifeless where he had been kneeling.
“Look out!” cried Harman and began running toward the fray.
The first Terror Bird—pouring blood from the spear wound and broken shaft still embedded in his chest—was rushing at Odysseus’ back. The bird’s head snapped forward on six feet of feathered-snake neck and the huge beak snapped where Odysseus’ head would have to be if he retreated. But the warrior had thrown himself forward rather than back, rolling again, but with empty hands this time as the Terror Bird ran past him and then wheeled, twisting and turning almost as impossibly fast as had the oddly jointed grazers.
“Hey!” shouted Harman and threw a rock at the giant bird.
The Terror Bird’s head snapped high, the yellow eyes blinked at the impertinence, and the huge predator kicked forward toward Harman, who skidded in the dirt, said “Shit!” in a high voice, and scrambled back the way he had come. Suddenly Harman realized that he couldn’t outrun the monster, and he turned, legs apart, fists raised, ready to meet the Terror Bird’s charge with his bare hands.
Ada looked around for a rock, a stick, a weapon of any sort. There was none in reach. She leaped to her feet.
Odysseus swept up his shield and—using the grazer’s carcass as a springboard—jumped aboard the Terror Bird’s back, pulling his short sword from its scabbard as he did so.
The bird kept running in Harman and Ada’s direction, but now its neck was twisted around, head snapping, giant red beak clacking against Odysseus’ circular shield. Every time the massive jaws struck, Odysseus was knocked backward, but his legs were tight around the bird’s body six feet above the ground, and though he bent far back, like a trick horseback rider in the turin drama, he never fell off. Then, as the Terror Bird’s head swiveled around, finding Harman with its yellow eyes, Odysseus leaned forward and pulled the sword low across the giant bird’s white-feathered neck, severing the jugular.
He jumped off, landed on his feet, and ran to Harman’s side as the Terror Bird crashed to the ground and lay still not ten feet in front of them. Blood spurted five feet in the air and then the red fountain diminished and disappeared as the huge heart stopped beating.
Panting, covered with grazer gore and Terror Bird blood and grass and mud, his bloody sword and shield still held high, Odysseus grinned through his beard and said, “I only wanted one for dinner, but we’ll carve up the second one for leftovers.”
Ada came up to Harman and touched his arm. He never looked around. His eyes were wide.
Odysseus walked to the nearest bird, cut off its huge head, and ran his skinning knife down the length of its chest, peeling flesh and skin and feathers back as easily as someone would help remove a thick coat. “I’ll need more plastic bags,” he said to Harman and Ada. “There are some in a storage locker near the aft end of the sonie. Just say ‘Open locker’ to the machine and it will open. But hurry.”
Harman had turned to walk back to the sonie but paused. “Hurry? Why?”
Odysseus wiped blood from his beard with the back of his hand and grinned whitely at them. “These birds smell blood up to ten leagues away . . . and there are hundreds of hunting pairs of Terror Birds out here on the plains at twilight.”
Harman turned and ran hard toward the sonie to get the bags.
Ada noticed that Savi and Daeman were both drunk before dinner began.
The meal was served in a glass room attached to the side of the south tower’s higher support. Savi was heating pre-prepared meals in a regular microwave bubble, but Ada was fascinated—she had never seen a meal prepared exclusively by a human being before. The absence of servitors in the Golden Gate residence areas was even more noticeable during a meal.
Odysseus was outside on the bridge’s broad support strut and had erected a clumsy stone-and-metal structure in which he was burning wood he’d brought back from the plains. It had begun to rain and Odysseus had to build the fire high to keep it burning. Flames lighted the rust and faded orange paint on the side of the tower.
Looking out through the translucent green wall, sipping from his glass of gin, Harman said, “Is that some sort of altar to his pagan gods?”
“Not quite,” said Savi. “It’s how he cooks his food.” She carried bowls and plates to the round table where the others were waiting. “Call him inside, would you?” she said to Harman. “Our food is getting cold while he’s cremating his, and there’s a lightning storm coming over the mountains. It’s not a great idea to be out on the bridge superstructure during a lightning storm.”
When they were finally seated, Odysseus setting the wooden plates of steaming meat on a nearby counter so that no one would have to stare at the fire-blackened stuff, Savi passed around a pitcher of wine. She poured her own glass last and Ada overheard the old woman whisper, “Baruch atah adonai, eloheno melech ha olam, borai pri hagafen.”
“What is that?” Ada asked softly. Everyone else was laughing at something Daeman had said and had not seemed to notice Savi’s muttering. The only time Ada had every heard another language was in the turin drama; there the battling men spoke in gibberish, but somehow the turin translated every word so that anyone under the cloth understood the meaning without actually listening.
Savi shook her head, although whether to say that she did not know the meaning of the odd words, or that she was not disposed to tell them, Ada could not tell.
“I explored all the levels of the bridge and bubbles around the bridge,” Hannah was saying excitedly. “The metal of the bridge itself is old and rusty but . . . amazing. And there are strange shapes of metal in some of the rooms below. Just freestanding, not part of any structure. Some are in the shape of men and women.”
Savi barked a laugh. She was already refilling her glass with wine. No strange words accompanied this pouring.
“Those are statues,” said Odysseus. “Sculptures. Have you never seen such things?”
Hannah shook her head slowly. Even though the girl had spent years learning how to heat and pour metal, Ada knew, the idea of making things in the shape of human beings or other living things was shocking. Ada also found it strange.
“They have no art,” Savi said brusquely to Odysseus. “No sculpture, no painting, no crafts, no photography, no holography, not even genetic manipulation. No music, no dance, no ballet, no sports, and no singing. No theater, no architecture, no Kabuki, no No plays, no nothing. They’re as creative as . . . newborn birds. No, I take that back . . . even birds know how to sing and build a nest. These latter day eloi are silent cuckoos, inhabiting other birds’ nests without so much as a song for payment.” Savi was beginning to slur her words slightly.
Odysseus looked at Hannah, Ada, Daeman, and Harman, and his expression was unreadable. Meanwhile, the four guests stared at Savi, wondering why her tone was so angry.
“But then,” continued Savi, looking only Odysseus in the eye, “they have no literature, either. And neither do you.”
Odysseus smiled at the woman. Ada recognized the smile from when the man was carving flesh out of the flank of the grazing animal. Odysseus had bathed before dinner, even his gray curly hair was freshly shampooed, but Ada still imagined his arms and hands and beard as they had been—streaked with blood, clotted with gore. It wasn’t any of her business, but she thought it probably unwise for Savi to goad him so.