Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 (35 page)

The boy hesitated, shaking his head. “Northeast corner looks kind of like Praxis Dale, but she’s supposed to be away West, fighting the Federals. Saint Sandalwood’s physical presence had the same profile as Dale’s, but we believe he’s gone, consumed by Athena after their last sortie against the containment field cost her so much.”

“I’ll never understand why she plays at politics with her subordinates when she
is
her subordinates,” said Japheth.

The Owl said, “That’s not as true with the Commodores as with a lot of the . . . inhabitants. I think it
is
Saint Sandalwood; she must have reconstituted him, or part of him. And remember his mnemonic?”

“Sandalwood staring,”
sang the blue-eyed boy.

“Inside and outside,”
finished Japheth, looking the Owl in the eye. “Time then?”

“Once we’re on the Lick I’d do anything she told me, even empty as I am,” said the Owl. “Bind me.”

Then the blue-eyed boy took Soma by the arm, kept encouraging him to take in the sights of the Parthenon, turning his head away from where the Crows were wrapping the Owl in grapevines. They took the Owl’s helmet from a rucksack and seated it, cinching the cork seals at the neck maybe tighter than Soma would have thought was comfortable.

Two of the Crows hoisted the Owl between them, his feet stumbling some. Soma saw that the eyeholes of the mask had been blocked with highly reflective tape.

Japheth spoke to the others. “The bears won’t be in this; they’ll take too long to stand up from their meal. Avoid the Legislators, even their trails. The THP will be on the ground, but won’t give you any trouble. You boys know why you’re here.”

The two Crows holding the Owl led him over to Japheth, who took him by the hand. The blue-eyed boy said, “We know why we’re here, Japheth. We know why we were born.”

And suddenly as that, the four younger Crows were gone, fleeing in every direction except back up Church Street.

“Soma Painter,” said Japheth. “Will you help me lead this man on?”

Soma was taken aback. While he knew of no regulation specifically prohibiting it, traditionally no one actually trod the Lick except during Campaign.

“We’re going into the Salt Lick?” Soma asked.

“We’re going into the Parthenon,” Japheth answered.

As they crossed Church Street from the south, the car suddenly stopped.

“Now what, car?” said Jenny. Church Street was her least favorite thoroughfare in the capital.

The car snuffled around on the ground for a moment, then, without warning, took a hard left and accelerated, siren screeching. Tourists and sunset gazers scattered to either side as the car and Jenny roared toward the glowing white horizon.

The Owl only managed a few yards under his own power. He slowed, then stumbled, and then the Crow and the painter were carrying him.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Soma.

They crossed the verge onto the salt. They’d left the bravest sight-seers a half-block back.

“He’s gone inside himself,” said Japheth.

“Why?” asked Soma.

Japheth half laughed. “You’d know better than me, friend.”

It was then that the Commodore closest to them took a single step forward with its right foot, dragged the left a dozen yards in the same direction, and then, twisting, fell to the ground with a thunderous crash.

“Whoo!” shouted Japheth. “The harder they fall! We’d better start running now, Soma!”

Soma was disappointed, but unsurprised, to see that Japheth did not mean run
away
.

There was only one bear near the slightly curved route that Japheth picked for them through the harsh glare. Even light as he was, purged of his math, the Owl was still a burden and Soma couldn’t take much time to marvel at the swirling colors in the bear’s plastic hide.

“Keep up, Soma!” shouted the Crow. Ahead of them, two of the Commodores had suddenly turned on one another and were landing terrible blows. Soma saw a tiny figure clinging to one of the giants’ shoulders, saw it lose its grip, fall, and disappear beneath an ironshod boot the size of a bundle bug.

Then Soma slipped and fell himself, sending all three of them to the glowing ground and sending a cloud of the biting crystal salt into the air. One of his sandaled feet, he saw, was coated in gold slime. They’d been trying to outflank one Legislator only to stumble on the trail of another.

Japheth picked up the Owl, now limp as a rag doll, and with a grunt heaved the man across his shoulders. “Soma, you should come on. We might make it.”
It’s not a hard decision to make at all. How can you not make it? At first he’d needed convincing, but then he’d been one of those who’d gone out into the world to convince others. It’s not just history; it’s after history
.

“Soma!”

Japheth ran directly at the unmoving painter, the deadweight of the Owl across his shoulders slowing him. He barreled into Soma, knocking him to the ground again, all of them just missing the unknowing Legislator as it slid slowly past.

“Up, up!” said Japheth. “Stay behind it, so long as it’s moving in the right direction. I think my boys missed a Commodore.” His voice was very sad.

The Legislator stopped and let out a bellowing noise. Fetid steam began rising from it. Japheth took Soma by the hand and pulled him along, through chaos. One of the Commodores, the first to fall, was motionless on the ground, two or three Legislators making their way along its length. The two who’d fought lay locked in one another’s grasp, barely moving and glowing hotter and hotter. The only standing Commodore, eyes like red suns, seemed to be staring just behind them.

As it began to sweep its gaze closer, Soma heard Japheth say, “We got closer than I would have bet.”

Then Soma’s car, mysteriously covered with red crosses and wailing at the top of its voice, came to a sliding, crunching stop in the salt in front of them.

Soma didn’t hesitate, but threw open the closest rear door and pulled Japheth in behind him. When the three of them—painter, Crow, Owl—were stuffed into the rear door, Soma shouted, “Up those stairs, car!”

In the front seat, there was a woman whose eyes seemed as large as saucers.

Jenny-With-Grease-Beneath-Her-Fingernails was trying not to go crazy. Something was pounding at her head, even though she hadn’t tried to open it herself. Yesterday, she had been working a remote repair job on the beach, fixing a smashed window. Tonight, she was hurtling across the Great Salt Lick, Legislators and bears and
Commodores
acting in ways she’d never seen or heard of.

Jenny herself acting in ways she’d never heard of. Why didn’t she just pull the emergency brake, roll out of the car, wait for the THP? Why did she just hold on tighter and pull down the sunscreen so she could use the mirror to look into the backseat?

It
was
three men. She hadn’t been sure at first. One appeared to be unconscious and was dressed in some strange getup, a helmet of some kind completely encasing his head. She didn’t know the man in the capacitor jacket, who was craning his head out the window, trying to see something above them. The other one though, she recognized.

“Soma Painter,” she said. “Your car is much better, though it has missed you terribly.”

The owner just looked at her glaze-eyed. The other one pulled himself back in through the window, a wild glee on his face. He rapped the helmet of the prone man and shouted, “Did you hear that? The unpredictable you prophesied! And it fell in our favor!”

Soma worried about his car’s suspension, not to mention the tires, when it slalomed through the legs of the last standing Commodore and bounced up the steeply cut steps of the Parthenon.
He hadn’t had a direct hand in the subsystems design—by the time he’d begun to develop the cars, Athena was already beginning to take over a lot of the details. Not all of them, though; he couldn’t blame her for the guilt he felt over twisting his animal subjects into something like onboard components
.

But the car made it onto the platform inside the outer set of columns, seemingly no worse for wear. The man next to him—Japheth, his name was Japheth and he was from Kentucky—jumped out of the car and ran to the vast, closed counterweighted bronze doors.

“It’s because of the crosses. We’re in an emergency vehicle according to their protocols.” That was the mechanic, Jenny, sitting in the front seat and trying to stanch a nosebleed with a greasy rag. “I can hear the Governor,” she said.

Soma could hear Japheth raging and cursing. He stretched the Owl out along the backseat and climbed out of the car. Japheth was pounding on the doors in futility, beating his fists bloody, spinning, spitting. He caught sight of Soma.