Obviously, the sewage system was the perfect place for them to take over and multiply. He remembered the childhood stories about the cold fires lighting the vats of the water-treatment plants built under the cities. Of course, Gill didn’t know for sure if they were true or not because the few who had the courage to enter there—namely, the sewage workers—did nothing to deny them, whereas the others steered clear55 from the tubes.
With all the comfort brought by the feeble patch of light, it wasn’t much of a help. Yet, in spite of his rush to run away from the tarjis, he couldn’t force himself to leave it and sink again into the cold darkness.
Driven by a sudden sniff of inspiration, he touched the colony and saw, delighted, how his fingers became glowing purple. Trying to ignore the awful smell, he spread the sticky paste on his tunic. Once the whole patch of slime had been moved to its new home, his clothes were shining so nicely he could find his way around much easier.
Not far from there, he found a second and then a third patch, both larger than the first one. Soon, he was giving off enough light that he could even run in the tunnel without fearing that he might smack his head on a wall!
At the next bifurcation, he changed his direction toward the city center, after which he changed it again to the left. Now he was running along a massive pipeline to the west.
After about an hour, he decided he had enough stink lodged in his nostrils to last him for a lifetime. Without thinking too much, he climbed to the surface on one of the metallic stairways. He cautiously looked around to make sure the place was deserted, and then he crawled out of the manhole, fixing the cover in place to leave no clues for the temples. He was near a magnetic bridge at the western outskirts, close to the fields where the gods had landed.
Pushed by a burning impulse, he ran to the place where the Rigulian ship had landed, following the trails left by the hordes of tarjis. The deserted fields gave him hope that he wouldn’t be spotted, but on the other tail, the lack of tarjis could only mean the aliens had left…
Gill reached the middle of the field. The huge square was surrounded by ritual bowls, a few of them still smoldering. As he suspected, the Federals were gone. Nothing suggested that the Rigulian envoys had once passed through there.
He fell on his knees, drained of energy. He knew he had to leave quickly to avoid being detected by the space platforms. However, he had no idea where he could hide from the billion Antyrans smelling his tracks…
***
“Great Baila, the news isn’t good,” said the hesitant voice of the freshly minted ratrap to Baila’s hologram.
“What do you mean, Harut? Explain it to me because I don’t understand. You have millions of tarjis under your command. Are you saying you were unable to get him?”
“A… a… Your Greatness, he hid in the sewerage system,” Harut mumbled.
“So? What are you waiting for? Go after him!”
“Your Greatness,” babbled Harut, bowing his head, “I gave the order but… they hesitate. It’s… dark in there!”
“Harut, are they afraid of Gillabrian?” Baila said in his trademark falsely gentle voice, which obviously didn’t bode well for Harut. “More afraid than of Zhan’s fury?” he screamed, boiling in rage. “And mine?”
“Your Greatness, without lights, we can’t find him. He could be anywhere; he can hit us as he wishes! He’s in Arghail’s nest! I’ve heard terrible stories. We’re fighting a monst—”
“Well,” Baila interrupted him impatiently, “how long does it take to bring lights?”
“We’re searching, Your Greatness, but till today, we didn’t know what night was. We don’t have li—”
“Harut, make sure you guard the manholes.”
Harut shouted several orders to the initiates around, and then he turned to Baila’s hologram.
“There are many manholes; it will take time to find all—”
“Move quickly! Anyway, I don’t think he will hide there. I know exactly where he’s heading. I want you to aim the space platforms on the western fields, where we met the… gods. I’m sure Gillabrian wants to greet them in the flesh,” he said, grinning broadly.
“I see, Your Greatness! I’ll send the chameleons and the air-jets after him!”
“Make sure he won’t escape this time. I don’t think I can bear any more bad news, ratrap,” he said in an icy voice.
***
Gill’s attention was drawn by the nearby spaceport, where two large ships were taking off with a deafening noise. For a brief moment, the orange flames of the fusion engines shone brighter than a hundred stars in the middle of the day, blinding him. The sound was so intense it would have killed anyone near the launch pad. Other ships were neatly aligned on the loading ramp. He spotted one with its belly open, apparently awaiting its cargo. No one was around, not even the cargo handlers—which was understandable, given the takeoffs.
Maybe the ships were flying to meet the gods in orbit? Or rescue the tarjis from Antyra II? Wherever they went, they were the best hiding place in the world. What sane Antyran would have the tail to hide from the temples right in the middle of their army?
He walked near the spaceport’s fence, hidden in the tall grass. Even though he could cross it without problems, he had to be careful not to be spotted by the guards. But since the first brilliant thing that the temples surely did was to delete the artificial intelligences, the most formidable defenses of the spaceport were a thing of the past.
He made sure that the place was still deserted and that no other ship was about to take off before he pulled a rectangle from above the fence. He stepped inside it and found himself falling to the ground. In the middle of the free fall, he pulled another area from above the ground and landed near a pile of boxes. I’m getting better and better with this! he thought, delighted that he didn’t break his face. Another step and he reached a half-full trailer. The next jump carried him right into the open belly of the space carrier.
Gill walked into the cargo bay, which seemed to be full of weapons and crates. This didn’t smell good, and not only due to his stinky tunic, still dripping with slimy bacteria. Who goes on a rescue mission taking the entire Antyran arsenal with him? Well, it made no sense to tire his kyi too much on the subject because he couldn’t turn back anyway.
It was easy to jump around unnoticed because the soldiers were staying in their cabins at the front of the ship. He jumped to a higher floor to sniff the food stores.
After the last boxes were pushed and anchored inside the ship, he heard the huge rear hatch closing. Soon, the ship sprang into the sky with a mighty roar. They took off to an unknown destination, saving Gill from the prophet and his huge army of tarjis.
CHAPTER 9.
The red starlight quivered, reflected by the myriads of sloughs formed in the muddy ground of the forest—a clue that it had rained that morning. It was a wholly unremarkable occurrence because in the subarctic region of the road-making planet-ship, the rain was falling right after star-rise with clockwork precision.
The rolling creature tried hard to take advantage of the morning breeze, which was blowing with enough strength to dimple the sloughs, to get some extra propulsion. Its shape resembled a pinwheel, largely due to its shell made up of wide scales. These scales rose like little sails when they reached the upper side, the most exposed to the airflow, to catch the wind. Even stranger than the rest of its anatomy were the two pairs of tentacles, holding its telescopic eyes. They stretched sideways to allow it to see while rolling over the rugged terrain.