Rosa winced."That's even worse."
For Slide, the projected image was of unfocused, but vicious and all-encompassing, violent vegetable revenge. "The ships getting mad."
Rosa nodded. "And I don't want to be around when it gets even."
Slide hesitated, and within the bowl of her helmet Rosa arched an eyebrow. "What's the problem, boychick?"
"It seems like I arrive everyplace only to have to lam out before I've hardly had time to get acquainted."
"You want to get acquainted with this mess?"
"No, but…"
Rosa worked the eyebrow again. "But what?"
"If I blind-jump one more time I could wind up bare-ass discorporate."
Slide felt that he was admitting weakness to another demon, but Rosa's laugh crackled through his radio. "Is that all that's worrying you?"
"Isn't discorporation enough?"
"Your worries are over on that count, Yancey Slide."
"What?"
"I have a way out for us, but we have to hurry. Aside from what the ship might do, I also see something that you might consider bad news."
Slide turned. "Bad news?"
"You're on the lam from the IIA and the Pentecostals, right?"
"And Nuygen von Bulow, and fuck knows how many others."
"And the beef is time-crime?"
"That's supposed to be the story, except in my continuity, I don't remember having done a damn thing."
Rosa wasn't buying this. "Not a damn thing? Gimme a break."
"Not time-crime."
"Well, whether you remember it of not, you may have troubles."
Slide twitched. "Say what? Nuygen's here with the pirates?"
Rosa shook her head. "Not Nuygen, but I think I see two of IIA Black Concluders over on the far side of the cortex."
The area was now so filled with smoke that Slide could see very little. "Where?"
"Beyond that red membrane thing."
Rosa was right; two figures in black skin-suits, and skullcaps under goldfish bowl helmets, could only be Concluders in full field kit. "You'd better show me that way out."
"Just follow me, kid."
They grabbed each others gloves and stepped over an Eloi being ravished by a frenzy of small fat Simolians, but seemingly loving every minute of it. Loving it so much, in fact, that, when her attackers rapidly abandoned her, as was the way of Simolians, she lurched to her feet and screamed after them to finish her.
Rosa indicated one of the arterial tunnels that led out of the cortex and into the leafy depths of the ship. As they entered it, Slide saw a cluster of bouncing rubberoid spheres coming rapidly up behind them. In an instant of dislike, he spun, drew, and blasted three of them. The others rapidly changed course and bounced back the way they had come, bleating and squeaking. Rosa nodded approvingly. "You're really quite the pistoleer, aren't you?"
"That's what they used to say."
Slide and Rosa emerged from the arterial tunnel into a vault-like chamber filled with foliage where nothing overly dramatic was being acted, just some nude Eloi and naked pirates engaging in a sloppy but an apparently consensual leaf-mold yabyum orgy, although Slide did notice orchids stealthily closing in, as if intending to turn the fuck-fest into a botanic gourmet delight. Rosa seemed also to notice the danger, because she quickened her pace, and, at the same time scanned the surrounding undergrowth as though searching for something.
"There…" She pointed and Slide saw. A Howdy Hole surrounded by cute little flowers.
"How the fuck did that get there?"
Rosa spread her gloved hands. "Don't ask me. I discovered it in my wanderings before you arrived."
"And brought all the trouble with me?"
"I didn't say that."
"I sensed you think it."
Rosa Coote said nothing, but Slide still had a momentary need to explain. "I usually control the flow."
"Like, you run the action, Yancey?"
"You know it."
"But you've time looped and the actions running you?"
"You got it."
Rosa Coote smiled with a surprising sadness."That's the worst part of being on the run." She seemed about to say more but an deafening and protracted shriek vibrated their helmets. The noise was so intense that Slide ducked, feeling as though he on the inside of some tortured, galaxy spanning nerve. "Damn! The ship is doing something double plus ungood." The shriek was repeated. Rosa stepped briskly to the Howdy Hole. Even with the helmet radio, she had to shout to be heard above the ululating biocraft. "I think that's our exit line." But Slide suddenly didn't want to be on his own in limbo again. "Rosa…
Rosa laid the fingertips of a glove quickly to his lucite. "No tender goodbyes, Yancey Slide. We need to be out of here." And with that she had dropped from sight. Slide took a deep breath of canned, space armor air, and followed her. The reality of the Eloi biocraft winked out, but Slide found himself in a place that was no better, and perhaps actually worse. He was immediately assailed by machine gun and rapid cannon fire. He was in a burning, spinning flying machine of a kind he did not recognize. Someone was screaming in Hebrew that he should bail out. He knew it was only a first-shock Gantenbrink hallucination conjured by the sub-atomic foam, and that Howdy Holes were like that, but he still hurled himself through an open hatch and spun into thin air. He counted to ten and pulled the ripcord on his C20 style parachute, but at the first jerk of the opening chute the hallucination vanished and he was assaulted by disembodied, abstract, and wholly meaningless words.
CONSEQUENTIAL MANGLE OEDIPUS DIGRAM DIFFRACTOMETER REPENT ARIZONA PERVERSION TV FORGIVEN LIABLE GRIFFIN COMPETITION MONADIC CHAMFER CHLORINATE CONCEPTUAL ALEXANDER PEAL SEISMOGRAPHY SPATE ELITE CONVERSE LETHARGY PREFERENCE ANA FLASH COCO EUCRE BANBURY TIMON ESTES RADIUM PUNDIT SENT BRENDAN CLARET CHICKEN VENGEFUL AMERADA CERAMIC CLEANUP!
"What the fuck is this?"
"What did you expect? A vision of the Rapture?"
CLIMATOLOGY BEECHAM ABSTAIN KETOSIS SNARE ALTOGETHER COINCIDE TWICE ALEXIS IMPEACH DIVERT PLUMP BLOCKADE PLUTONIUM SLOPE BENNETT COS THREE DUTCHMAN INERTANCE CONSPICUOUS MILITATE KAZOO CAVEMAN AVOCET KRUSE WHITCOMB NEWBOLD ADULATE ANGSTROM COURAGE CHURCHWOMEN DETACH PYONGYANG ATAVISM DESIDERATA COOLHEADED UNIPROCESSOR MANOR THERE'LL ANONYMITY DISCOMFIT!
"Out, out, I want out. I had enough of the unintelligible."
CLEAVAGE AUTOMATA ALGORITHM ANGLOPHOBIA FISCHER MUSSEL ARID TACK TWINE ILLUSIVE SNAKELIKE SKYLIGHT FIREHOUSE REVOCABLE BEDEVIL GENTRY BITT KNURL HESPERUS BEREA ANGULAR BUCHANAN CROWBERRY BEGINNER ATTACHE AMBASSADOR OFTEN HARROW BMW MAYA CHENEY FETE SHATTERPROOF MULLEN CRAVAT DOMINGO ARMOUR ECONOMIC RESULT CURTAIN WORKMANLIKE TEAMSTER CRYPTANALYST EMPLACE FANG BOOKSHELVES COLA AMPERSAND AMESLAN APPREHENSIVE FRIEDMAN CINEMA UMBRA EXCAVATE ARK CURDLE CONCILIATORY DOSSIER CRANKCASE!
And no sooner had he asked than he was out. The Howdy Hole appeared obliging, but then revealed itself as ferociously tricky, because the first thing Slide discovered was that he was no longer human. He had massive muscular hind legs, and tiny hands and arms, with disproportionately large claws. His enormous mouth was full of sharp-pointed reptilian teeth, and his breath reeked of old blood and rotting flesh.
"I'm in the fucking Jurassic and, if I read the polish on the claws correctly, I'm in the body of a goddamned velociraptor."
He wanted to yell. "Fuck this prehistoric shit!"
But it just came out as thunderous lizard bellow.
