“Whatever you say,” Jar muttered.
“Shoot,” Parka said, trying to focus. “Let’s see, we’re about three hours away from Santa Fey by the tunnel. But who knows now. Is it hot up on the surface?”
The woman was about to say something, but she was drowned out by a quaking roar from above, and then a series of blossoming explosions.
“Well, I guess that answers your question,” Jar said.
“Okay,” Parka said. “I hate this. We’re going to miss Hallows Eve.”
“Stop whining,” Jar said. “The amulet is the important thing, remember? Priorities?”
“I wish I had more apples,” Parka muttered, revving his motorcycle and easing into the detour that the woman directed him to. He meant to ask her about the walking sticks.
Parka and Jar’s motorcycles climbed to the surface. The surface was full of bright light and wispy ash was in the air. The couriers were in the desert foothills. An Old Being was hunkered down, sprawling in the desert. Eagle-falcon drones—it was hard to tell what mercenary company they were attached to—swooped, bombed, and soared away from the Being. Parka and Jar stopped and assayed the narrow road ahead, and where the road stopped.
“Ugh,” Parka said. “The Being’s in the way.”
“Yeah.”
The Being ate mountains. Finishing those, the Being would move to the badlands and mesas. Sparks shot off its slimy, translucent fur as it swept its mammoth pseudopods across sheep farms and little casinos. There were kites on stiff strings protruding from its upper reaches. When the Beings landed on a planet and sucked out the nitrogen, galactic civilizations would follow. After a few years, the Beings would be full, and then calcify, leaving several seedling Beings in their wake, who would then transport themselves to new systems. And then the residue of the Being’s wake could be properly and safely mined. This residue powered the vast interstellar transmutation ships. Until that time, there would be war around the perimeters of the Beings, dozens of mercenary guilds and free companies jostling for position.
“There’s no way we can drive around it?” Jar asked.
“Too many gullies.” Parka put on his telescopic sunglasses and squinted at the Being. “Well, it’s possible to… no.”
“What?” Jar said. “Tell me.”
More ships screamed above them, fast-eagle merlins that carpetbombed a trench right in front of the Being. Prisms trailed in the bombs’ wake. Counter-fire from the trench screamed upward.
“We’ll jump over said Being,” Parka said.
Jar started laughing so much that sulfur tears began streaming out of his ducts, splashing upon his upholstery. “Whither the ramp, friend, whither the ramp?”
“What, you can’t do a wheelie?”
“No… I’ve—I’ve never tried.”
“And where did you learn to ride again?”
Jar paused. “On the ship.”
“Hell, no wonder. You have to learn on the surface. I learned in Tennessee, before its flattening. Everyone wheelied. Well, anyway, it’s easy. You just have to utilize the booster with the correct timing. You want to practice?”
“No, I’ll watch you first.”
“Are you scared?”
“Yeah.”
Parka leaned forward and put a claw on Jar’s carapace. “Well, don’t be. Okay, let me make my approach.”
Parka put his motorcycle in reverse about a half a kilometer and considered his approach, licking his lips. Jar crossed his arms and looked back and forth from the Being to Parka. The Being began humming, with resonances of local accordion noises. Parka leaned forward, kicked his motorcycle on, and then he roared forward, shooting past Jar in an instant. Then Jar turned on his motorcycle as well, and revved, and soon enough was a few lengths behind Parka.
“No, Jar!” Parka shouted, looking behind him. But there was no way for Jar to hear him, both traveling at the speed of sound. The Being was before them. Through its diaphanous surface, Parka could see about a thousand humans, and also four hundred birds of various types, five herds of cattle, a parking lot of used cars, several giant tractors, many boulders/reprocessed mountains, broken casinos, and a few off-worlders who were too stupid to get out of the way.
Parka hunkered down and wheelied and hit the booster. He soared, gaining clearance by a few meters over the Being. There were white kites protruding from the gelatinous skin of the Being, the kites’ strings puncturing the surface and spooled far below. The eagle-falcons’ bombs had accidentally scarred the Being in many places, but they weren’t able to break through the surface.
When the booster gave out, Parka held out his arms and leaned forward, just clearing the Being. He skidded to a halt and spun the motorcycle around, watching Jar.
Jar had accelerated too late, and he seemed to hang over the Being, suspended like one of the eagle-falcons.
Jar gave a thumbs-up sign.
Then one of the kites snapped to life and whipped at one of his legs, and the thread tangled around the limb. Jar careened forward and separated from his cycle, which slammed against the surface of the Being’s skin—the booster still on—and ricocheted upward. With the booster still going at full capacity, the motorcycle slammed into the wings of one of the low-flying fast-eagle merlins that was overhead. The eagle merlin spiraled out of control and careened into the side of a mesa about ten kilometers away. Parka felt the backblast as he watched Jar try to pull at the kite, tearing at the ashy paper. But the thread held. He landed, almost gently, on top of the Being. He tried to stand up, but in a few seconds he was beginning to sink into the Being.
“Jar!” Parka shouted. “Hang on!”
“Sorry,” Jar shouted back, his legs already consumed. He looked down. “There’s some serious alternate reality shit going on in there,” he said.
“Keep fighting!” Parka said, but he knew it was hopeless.
Jar held up all of his arms and slid into the Being.
Parka hunched over his motorcycle, his head sinking between the handlebars. About a dozen walking sticks landed in his fur. He ran his claw over the hair, scooping them up and eating them. They tasted like Fritos.
“Nasty,” he said, spitting them out.
He started riding again to Santa Fey in silence, with the shriek of the pre-mining operational maneuvers above him and to all sides. He put on his Toby Keith, but even this wouldn’t soothe his guilt.
When he saw Santa Fey on the horizon, and the glow of the madrigal lights along the city walls, and the faint thrum of fiddles and cymbals and electric guitars, he became light-headed and also ridden with shame, which was far worse than guilt. He stopped his motorcycle and revved it, his gills fluttering.
At last he thought of Jar and also tried to consider what his life meant, in the end.
“Screw it,” he said, and he turned around, back toward the Being.
About a kilometer away, Parka stopped and took the amulet out of the pouch. He knew, whatever happened, that his diplomatic career would be over. He would never be able to set foot in Santa Fey again, and they would in all likelihood hunt him down, if he lived. He would likely have to leave the planet he had grown fond of. Slowly, he slid the amulet around his neck. The walking sticks rose to the occasion, then. Soon there were thousands congregating around him, wedged in his joints and lining his shell. They felt warm and they tickled. The Being gurgled in the distance.
He remembered, with a sudden pang, what he had forgotten at the time—that the walking sticks were in his joints in much the same way during the kickboxing match.
A Camaro pulled up beside him, revving its engine. The boy, Sharon, was driving it; he was still covered in insects. Actually, Parka couldn’t tell whether there was a boy there at all. Parka’s own insects dropped off him and scurried up the car and through the open window to be with Sharon.