"Little Will. Tomorrow morning hook Reg up to a wagon and head back to Miira."
Her eyes opened wide. "Why? The nags do that." "Not this time. Reg isn't taking the cold good. If you don't get your bull outta these mountains soon, she'll die." Packy cocked his head toward the campfires. "We got some sick to go in, too." He placed a hand upon her shoulder. "Pete looks like he's down with the bug. Four others." Packy turned back to the bulls. "Get some sleep. I can't spare anyone. You'll be pushing your parade by yourself—"
Three days later, the air warm and lazy around her, Little Will half dozed as she sat astride Reg's neck. Reg's harness was hooked to one of the fill wagons, the wagon's bay held five very sick men and women. One of them was Shiner Pete. Reg was lumbering north up the Miira-Kuumic road toward home. At odd moments, sensing Little Will was asleep, Reg would come to a halt and begin pulling up grass from the roadside. Little Will would tap the beast's shoulder with her bullhook, and Reg would move off again. Then, again, Little Will would doze.
In her mind she saw herself a hundred steps in front of the bull, urging it on. She walked the road ahead of the bull, seeing what was around the corners. A curious dream. She stopped in the center of the road, turned back, and waited for Reg. After a while, the elephant-drawn wagon appeared from around a bend in the road. Sitting astride Reg's neck was a sleeping Little Will.
She turned away from the image and looked up at the avenue of sky between the trees. Her arms went up, and she rose above the trees. Higher and higher, until she could look back and see White Top Mountain. Higher still, until the sky above was dark. Then she looked down. The marks on the surface of Momus made by the road gang were invisible. But ahead, near Table Lake, she could see the houses of Miira. There was one afire, and the blackened remains of three others could be seen. A little beyond the houses she could see the huge swath cut through the forest when Number Three plowed to a stop. At the end of that swath there was nothing except the forest trying to heal itself.
She felt a force—five distinct powers—surrounding her. They were forces only to be felt, not seen.
Who are you? she asked.
And you? called the forces. Who are you?
Her mind whirled as she remembered the voices: Hassih, Nhissia—the Ssendissians. But they were killed in the ship long before the crash.
We are the children of Ssendiss.
And they were strong. One would push her, then the next. She felt so weak—
She looked down and tried to find the elephant-drawn wagon. As she searched, the forces swatted her down. She tumbled rapidly and the green of the Great Muck Swamp rushed up at her—
Little Will opened her eyes. Reg was again sneaking a bite at the roadside. She tapped Reg's shoulder with the bullhook and the animal moved off down the road.
Little Will felt Shiner Pete's thoughts, and she let them in. "Is something wrong, Little Will?"
"No. I must have had a bad dream. Go back to sleep." She felt Shiner Pete drifting off, his fever making his mind swim. Little Will looked up at that avenue of blue above the road.
At least I think it was a dream, she thought to herself. She tapped Reg on the shoulder, then settled back into a half-doze.
In another three days, the wagon was in Miira, Reg was in the kraal, and Little Will was in her bed next to Pete, both of them swimming in the killer fever of the disease.
Little Will and Shiner Pete flew above the clouds. "See, Pete? I was right, wasn't I?"
Pete swung in a loop around Little Will. "You were right." He leveled out and looked down. "Look. We're over Tarzak." He looked at the wisp of light that was his wife. "I wonder how fast we can go." He streaked out over the Sea of Baraboo toward the continent of Midway.
"Pete, do you think we should?" He was far ahead and did not answer. Little Will moved until she was beside Pete. Far below the mirror of the sea shined back at them, and they could see four of the fishing boats from Tarzak on the water. "Pete, let's go faster. As fast as we can."
The two wisps arrowed toward the East. For a moment all they could see was sky and water, then ahead on the darkening horizon was the continent of Midway. They slowed. "Look!" called Pete. "It's Mbwebwe! Where Number Two went down."
Below them were flickers of light. Pete and Little Will were still in the sky's light; but it was the beginning of one of many long nights in Mbwebwe. The flickers of light became fires, and the fires became wooden houses in flames. Men and women with torches could be seen heading toward a still dark house. Little Will cried and streaked on ahead, into the night. For awhile there was nothing but the stars above and blackness below. Little Will still cried. "Pete."
"What?"
"Pete, I wish we had a moon. I wish we had a moon, Pete." In the darkness they touched, then rushed for the sun.
By the ninth night of Quake, Packy Dern was standing in the door of Mange Ranger's house. Mange and Butterfingers were slumped at Mange's paper-littered table.
"I wish I'd been here, Mange. You sure the boy's all right?"
Mange sat cross-legged on the cushion before his table, his face resting in his hands. He nodded without looking up. "He's all right, Packy. You're the father of a brand-new bouncing baby boy."
Butterfingers looked back at Packy. "The bug doesn't hit the kids. None of them born on Momus."
"What about Cookie Jo? She looks like hell."
Mange shook his head and lowered his hands. "Don't know. I just don't know." The vet rubbed his aching eyes and pointed at the table's mountain of notes. "We've tried everything. Just finished an experiment." Mange stared at the papers. "Nothing. Not a damned thing."
He swept his notes to the plank floor of the shack with a single sweep of his left arm. "Christ, I feel like a goddamned witchdoctor! Torching houses, chanting over boils..." He looked at Butterfingers. "It doesn't matter what in the hell we do. Is it a virus? A bacteria? A voodoo spell? We know it's not transferable from human to human. What is it, then? How many damned insects have we logged?"
Butterfingers shook his head. "Dunno. Must be a couple thousand by now. There must be thousands more."
Mange looked at Packy. "We have collected a billion roots, leaves, barks, berries—hell! Dammit, we don't even have a goddamned optical microscope! Nothing! If we could just do blood tests, we might be able to find out what it is that makes the kids born on the planet immune to the damned bug."
Butterfingers lowered his head down upon his arms. "So, what do we do?" His shoulders gave a tiny heave. "Squinty Mosdov over to Arcadia is trying to figure out how to grind lenses out of that gem quartz they found there, but we're not going to see enough through that kind of equipment. An old electron microscope probably wouldn't be much help, and... we're long way from... anything like that." Butterfingers's form was still except for the shallow motion of his breathing.
Mange stood and moved away from the table. He stood next to Packy and looked through the open doorway, staring at the smoldering coals of a recently torched house. "I half feel like putting on a mask and loin cloth and doing a dance." He stepped through the doorway into the night and walked toward the large plank and shingle structure that housed the stricken whose houses were in ashes.