The tentacle drew the boot to the mouth. The mouth irised open. The teeth showed at last: circular rows of them behind the plates. The tentacle fed the toe of the boot into the hole. The plates shifted, and the orifice became smaller. The toe of the boot was constricted.
The orifice opened again. The toe of the boot was gone. The teeth must have chewed it off while the nutcracker mouth held it.
Nona started, horrified, not knowing what to do.
“You block off its eye with the wood,” Colene told her. “I’ll get the axe.” Then, to Seqiro: “You make us fast and accurate, when.”
Numbly, Nona did as she was told. The Anomaly terrified her, and she felt naked without the main part of her magic, but she knew that something had to be done. She walked forward into the water by the monster’s head.
The tentacle threw the rest of the boot to the side. Evidently the Anomaly had concluded that it wasn’t edible. The two tentacles quivered, ready to snag something else. Darius was still stuck against the gunwale, holding the axe defensively.
Then the horse’s mind took over. Nona leaped to the side of the head and jammed her block of wood right up against the eye, blinding the monster on this side. Meanwhile Colene swooped down to take the axe from Darius’ hands. She set herself before the irising mouth and swung the axe with savage force at the base of one of the tentacles.
But the Anomaly, with uncanny prescience, flinched away, and the axe struck the impervious plates of the mouth. The tentacles whipped around and caught the head of the axe. It was clear that Darius had not been clumsy; the Anomaly had been apt.
Then the power left Nona. I am sorry, Seqiro’s thought came. I have no more strength. After that the ambience of his telepathy also faded.
Colene muttered something, but it was unintelligible. The horse was no longer translating.
A hand fell on Nona’s shoulder. She jumped, but it was Darius, who was now back on his feet. He held a knife. He pointed to the block of wood.
“The eye!” Colene said. “Stab the eye!”
The girl’s own telepathy was coming into play! Nona lowered the block, and Darius lunged over it, thrusting the knife at the eye.
And yet again the Anomaly reacted too swiftly for them. It pulled back, sliding into the water. They had repelled it—but the boat was sloshing with water, and riding low.
Colene fetched her bucket and started bailing. Nona looked around for another bucket, but there was none.
Then Burgess floated back. He dipped his intrunk in the water, pointed his outtrunk, and started pumping. The water streamed out.
Colene stopped and watched. So did the others. This was far more efficient than any effort they could make. Soon the boat was almost dry again, and riding high.
But the Anomaly was circling them. It had tried a direct frontal attack and been beaten off, so it was now more cautious, but it had not yet decided that they were not prey. This was a creature like the huge crab, with hardly more than one thing on its mind: hunger. They had barely stopped it, and they remained far from the shore. What should they do?
Nona looked at Colene. Colene looked at Darius. Nona knew what the girl was thinking: she wanted Darius to be the leader, though Colene herself, with her limited power of telepathy, was the most likely leader. Nona had seen Colene in action in her own reality of Julia, and knew that the girl was a natural fighter in her fashion. But she loved Darius, so wanted him to lead.
Darius seemed to come to the same conclusion. But it was evident that he had little notion how to proceed. He had tried to brace the monster, and Colene had had to spring to his rescue. He evidently did not feel much like a hero.
Then he got an idea. He pointed to Burgess, who was finishing up the bailout, leaving the deck clear. Burgess knew more about Anomaly than they did; he might have advice.
Colene nodded. Darius had made the decision; now she could act. She went to Burgess and put a hand on one of his contact points. Nona could not overhear their dialogue, but knew that Colene’s limited telepathy was getting through.
Unfortunately, the news seemed to be bad: Burgess had no experience fighting the Anomaly, and none in boats. All he knew was that the Anomaly would make short work of Burgess himself, if he tried to float out across the water. Nona could see that those mouth tentacles could hook on to the floater’s canopy, disrupting the flow of air, and quickly swamp him; then it would be easy to grind him up piecemeal.
Then something occurred to Nona. When she flew—Colene called it levitation—she moved across the land by magically moving some fixed object—Colene called it telekinesis. Since the object could not move, Nona did; thus she came toward or away from it, or passed beside it, using its resistance to propel herself. The process was automatic, and she seldom analyzed it. But now she realized that when she did this, she was applying what Colene called a scientific rule of action and reaction. When Nona pulled, either the object came to her or she came to it.
That was true whether she pulled magically or physically. So suppose that were done here: would a person be pulled or pushed the same way?
She went to her block of wood, which now lay at the end of the boat. She picked it up and heaved it away from her. She almost fell over. It did seem to push her the other way!
Darius looked at her, curious about what she was doing. Nona couldn’t explain to him, with the language barrier, so she went to Colene. She took the girl’s free hand. “Reaction,” she said, focusing the thought.
“Yes,” Colene replied, understanding the concept. “So what?”
“Burgess—throw water—reaction—move boat.” It was hard to convey her concept, because it was new to her.
“Yes!” Colene cried, suddenly understanding. “Burgess—when you fire things out your trunk, you get pushed back, right? So push us with water!” She made a mental picture.
Burgess floated to the back of the boat. He dipped his intrunk in the water, and fired a jet from his outrunk. The boat began to move, turning slowly around.
Colene grabbed the remaining paddle. She dragged it in the water behind the boat, and it served to steady the craft, so that instead of turning it moved forward. They were traveling toward the far shore again.
The Anomaly realized this. It swam close—and Darius drove the end of the long pole at its eye. He missed, but the monster sheered away.
Nona found a splinter of wood and concentrated on expanding it. They could have another pole, in case Anomaly crunched the existing one.
Anomaly was not so dull as to miss the implication: the prey was escaping! It circled the boat more swiftly, agitated. Then it moved away, turned, and came rapidly straight toward them.
Nona screamed warning. The monster was going to swamp them! Then it could consume what it wanted, as they floundered in the water.
There was no time to act, even if any of them had known what to do. Helplessly they watched Anomaly come at them, broadside. The creature lifted its head—then launched into the air.
Nona threw herself flat, trying to avoid being struck. The dark shape hurtled just above her.
There was a splash. Nona looked up. The Anomaly was swimming away on the other side. It had passed right over the boat!
She realized that it had misjudged, because of the boat’s low profile. It had intended to sweep one or more of them into the water, or to land across the boat and swamp it, but all the other people had been at the ends of the boat. Seqiro and Darius were at the front, Burgess and Colene at the back. But if the monster tried again, at one of the ends, it would catch one or more of them.