He might be very hurt indeed.
As Nimbus flowed up Lajoolie’s nostrils, I called to him, "I am sorry I suggested you behaved improperly when you entered Festina. I was foolish to jump to such a mistaken conclusion. But it is amusing, is it not, how misjudgments occur? And it is also most traditional. You and I, we are son and daughter of the Shaddill; and as siblings, it is common to fall into ill-founded petty disagreements…"
I stopped speaking because he had disappeared — completely ignoring my words. Pretending I did not exist, because he was fiercely angry at me.
Sometimes it is hard to have a brother. Especially when you both make each other feel bad.
More Arousals
I do not know if Divians are easier to wake than humans, or if Nimbus had simply gained experience in rousing persons from this type of unconsciousness. Whatever the explanation, the cloud man did not take nearly so long to bring Lajoolie around as he had with Festina. As soon as her eyes flickered open, he proceeded immediately into Uclod’s sinuses, not giving me the tiniest opportunity to apologize again.
Watching Nimbus work on the two Divians, I wondered why he had not woken them the previous time they had been shot with the Shaddill’s beam. The probable answer was that invading other people’s bodies truly filled him with abhorrence. On the previous occasion, I had been doing an excellent job of piloting Starbiter so there was no need to rouse the two Divians; now, however, our predicament was so dire that it called for Extreme Resuscitation.
Of course, extreme resuscitation is not pleasant, and neither Festina nor Lajoolie looked to be enjoying their newly regained consciousness. Lajoolie showed a marked preference for lying in a fetal position, occasionally whimpering with pain. Festina remained sitting up, but drooped her head between her knees and muttered unintelligible phrases conspicuously featuring the word "hangover."
In an attempt to divert them from brooding on their pain, I said, "Come, we will soon face the villainous Shaddill, so we must make plans for a fight." But this did not rally their spirits. Lajoolie just groaned and Festina mumbled, "If there is a battle, pray God I get shot."
When Uclod regained consciousness, he was no more eager to spring into action than the other two. Nimbus still would not talk — he went directly into Sergeant Aarhus without an instant’s pause. From Aarhus he moved on to Lady Bell, splitting himself into a dozen small fog patches and seeping into her body through a variety of orifices.
I do not know how he could tell which openings led into lungs, which into stomachs, and so on. However, the cloud man had the lady awake in under a minute… after which she howled most piteously. I opened my mouth to ask why she made such an appalling racket; but I closed it again when her head sank into her body as if being sucked down the neckhole. The skull fit exactly into her tiny torso.
This was something one did not see every day.
The now-headless Bell shifted her position on the floor to lie flat on her spine. Immediately her legs lifted up from the hips, slanting back and arching above her body until her toes touched the carpet near her shoulders — her legs completely covering her torso like two logs laid lengthwise down her chest. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms tight around her thighs, then bent her knees so that her calves were on top of her arms, on top of her upper legs, on top of her headless body. She held that tucked-up position for a brief moment; then the whole stack of Bell crushed in on itself with a sound like knuckles cracking. In a moment, she had reduced herself to a tight little basket of a person, a bundled-up woman who lay on the ground in a heap that reminded me of a discarded turtle shell.
This was the Cashling defense configuration I had seen in pictures. It may have been quite excellent for protecting vital organs under a thick arrangement of bones… but I did not think it clever to reduce oneself to a form that practically demanded other persons use you as a kickball.
Our Turn Next
All this time, the Shaddill ship had been snatching crusade vessels out of the sky. It did this with an extendible tube-stick, a big hose that reached toward one little craft after another and slowly sucked them in. None of the ships tried to flee or dodge the hose — the Cashlings on board must have been unconscious, everyone brought low by the blue-white flash.
Though I despised the Shaddill, I had to admit they built excellent weapons.
Each time a ship was captured, the mouth of the hose-stick squeezed shut for a few minutes. I suppose it took that long to swallow what had been eaten, to clear the stick’s mouth so it could gobble up more. In my imagination, I pictured a huge stomach inside the stick-ship, where little crusade craft bobbed listlessly amidst foul digestive juices. Well, I thought, I shall give those great poop-heads a tummy-ache to remember.
No sooner had those words passed through my mind than the great sucking hose turned its mouth toward us.
"Uh-oh," I said. "Uh-oh."
Blacking Out Destiny
"We must now be very brave," I announced to my comrades.
Festina lifted her head, saw the oncoming hose-stick, and staggered to her feet. She required a moment to steady herself once she became wholly upright; then she tottered her way to Lady Bell, who was still closed up tight in her basket configuration. "Hey," my friend said, nudging the Cashling woman with her toe. "Open up."
"Go away," muttered a mouth in the lady’s back.
"No," Festina said. "Not till you talk to your ship-soul."
I told Festina, "It would be unwise for Unfettered Destiny to take evasive maneuvers. We would only give away that we were conscious."
"I know; but we still have things to do." Festina gave Bell another nudge with her toe… though perhaps it was less a nudge and more of a kick.
"Leave me alone!" the lady hissed… which is to say, a small number of her mouths spoke the words while the rest did the hissing.
Festina took no notice. "I won’t leave you alone till you do what I want. It’s in your best interests too. If they take you prisoner, you’ll never be seen again. Do you want to go down in history as the prophet who lost an entire crusade?"
Lady Bell made a barking wheeze. I suspect this was a rude word in the Cashling tongue. However, as Festina prepared to deliver a kick that showed every promise of being full strength, Bell said, "All right, all right." An eye opened in the middle of her back. "What do you want?"
"Tell the ship-soul to opaque the hull. As thick as possible so we can’t see out."
"Why?" Lady Bell asked sullenly.
"In case the Shaddill flash us again."
"They’ve already flashed us once. What’s the point of a second shot?"
"Insurance," Festina said. "If I were the Shaddill, I’d keep shooting the whole damned crusade every five minutes, just to avoid surprises. They haven’t done that, so maybe the weapon draws too much power to let them bang away indiscriminately. Even so, they might have a smaller version of the weapon inside, and they’ll zap us just before they board our ship."
"You think blacking out the hull will protect us?" The lady’s voice sounded most sneerful. "I bet that beam isn’t real light at all — it’ll affect us even if we can’t see it."
"You’re probably right," Festina said. "But I’d feel stupid if we could save ourselves with simple measures and never bothered to try. Do it."
Lady Bell muttered something in Cashlingese. I thought it might be an insolent retort, but it must have been a command to the ship; a moment later, the glass roof went completely black. "There," Bell said. "Happy?"