According to Milo the Sky Lords had originally been called Sky Angels. They had been built by the organization known as the United Nations for a dual purpose. One was to provide a cheap and clean means of transporting cargo between countries, mainly the countries of the poorer ‘third world’; the other was to provide relief in times of natural disasters—they could ship in vast amounts of emergency supplies to areas stricken by famine or, in the event of earthquakes and floods, act as floating sanctuaries for the victims of the disasters, providing beds, food and shelter within their huge dormitories.
Thus it was only natural, in the chaotic aftermath of the Gene Wars, that the survivors should attempt to escape the plague viruses and other threats by retreating to these great sanctuaries in the sky. The trouble was that a lot of people had the same idea and for a time fierce fighting raged in and around each of the Sky Angels as the various groups struggled for possession. In the process two of the airships were destroyed. Finally the victors emerged from the carnage and life on the Sky Angels stabilized. But when the emergency supplies that each of the airships carried began to run out the people in them were obliged to turn their attention to the ground again. They needed food and other raw materials and so they forced those still living on the ground to provide it for them. The reign of the Sky Lords had begun.
At first there was no organization. The Sky Lords were rivals for the same food-producing lands and great air battles between these behemoths of the air were common. When another two Sky Lords had been destroyed a truce was agreed. This was followed by a conference between the rulers of each Sky Lord and the world was divided up into territories for the remaining airships. The idea was that each Sky Lord would never move out of his allotted territory and this rule had been followed ever since. But according to Milo it was unlikely to hold for much longer. …
“The blight has got the upper hand across the world now,” he had explained. “Too many of the ground communities are going under. When a Sky Lord discovers his official territory no longer contains enough food-producing communities to supply his needs it’s obvious he’s going to start poaching in the territories of the Sky Lords. It’s rumoured that there have already been aerial clashes between Sky Lords. Eventually it will turn into a full-scale war.” He seemed pleased at the prospect.
She said, “It’s so stupid. Men will go on fighting each other while the Mother Earth dies around them. Why don’t the Sky Lords and the ground people work together to try and stop the spread of the blight before it’s too late?”
“Old habits are hard to break,” he replied. “The sky people have traditionally regarded the ground dwellers as less than human. For them suddenly to start co-operating with the ‘earthworms’ on an equal basis at this stage is mere wishful thinking. Besides, I don’t see what the Sky Lords could do to help stop the blight.”
“Those lights that burn. The beams that destroyed our rockets—surely they could be used to burn the blight lands clean?”
“Well, they could,” he admitted slowly, “but as I told you, those laser weapons aren’t under the control of the sky people. They only operate automatically, and only against non-living dangers to the Sky Lord.” Then he’d given her a patronizing smile and said, “Anyway, what’s a good little Minervan doing considering the use of devices created by Man’s Science, eh?”
She had replied stiffly, “If such devices were put to the task of purifying the world I’m sure the Mother God might consider that Men weren’t completely beyond redemption.”
Jan received an unpleasant surprise when she climbed out on to the hull. There were several Sky Warriors standing about in the area surrounding the hatchway. They were all armed with their usual long-barrelled rifles and were scanning the skies. At the first opportunity Jan asked Milo the reason for their presence.
“Hazzini,” was his reply. “We’re flying over Hazzini territory at the moment. Will be for the next twenty-four hours or so. See, those are their nests.”
She looked and saw, ahead of them, a number of tall structures rising up from a row of low, blight-covered hills. They resembled huge, twisted tree trunks. Jan realized with a shock that they had to be hundreds of feet high.
“What are Hazzini?” she asked as she hooked the end of her line into a hull support. Today they were working on the bow of the Sky Lord and the view this position offered was spectacular.
“You never had any Hazzini raids on Minerva?” Milo asked.
“Not that I know of,” she called back.
“Well, you’d certainly know if you had. I guess Minerva was out of their range. Think yourself lucky. Hazzini are genetically engineered killing machines, pure and simple. One of the big corporations created them for use as a private army way back. Basic genetic material was from the insect kingdom. The things have wings. Most can’t fly this high but you get the occasional odd high-flier, so I’m told.”
“Oh,” she said. They were closer to the ‘nests’ now and she could see just how enormous the structures were. There were ledges protruding from the sides of the things and she thought she could see black dots swarming across them. Milo and she, like the other ‘wipers’, were waiting for the squad spraying on the solvent to get far enough ahead before they started work. The Lord Pangloth had, as usual, slowed down for the sake of the various slave squads out on the hull, but even so the rush of air sweeping over the bow was quite powerful and Jan had difficulty in keeping her balance. “So the Sky Warriors are guarding us then?” she asked Milo.
He laughed. “Us? Who cares about a bunch of slaves? No, the Warriors are there to guard the hatches and other possible points of entry on the hull. And you’ll notice that our friend Benny has left us to our own devices today.”
She looked back over her shoulder. The overseer had stayed with the group of Warriors around the hatchway. “You think we’re in danger from these creatures?” she asked. She looked down towards the ground again. The black dots were in the air now and some were growing uncomfortably large.
“I’ve worked over Hazzini territory lots of times,” said Milo, “and never seen one of them get even close to us. But if you believe the rumours there have been instances in the past when glass walkers have been snatched off the hull by Hazzini.”
“Are they intelligent?”
“If you mean self-aware, I would say no. But they’re certainly cunning. They’re programmed to do two things—kill their enemies and reproduce—and their designers provided them with enough built-in ingenuity to be very efficient at both. And as they’re also designed to live on practically anything, they can eat even the most toxic fungi. So they’re thriving in the blight lands. My guess is that the world will eventually be covered with blight and Hazzini. …”
Jan spent an uncomfortable day out on the hull, constantly looking behind her in case one of the Hazzini had managed to fly as high as the Lord Pangloth but though there was a lot of activity every time the airship flew over a Hazzini nest none of the swarming black dots far below them seemed to come any closer.