Mech

Nine

Garth took another sip of his hork-berry spritzer. The red liquid cooled his parched throat.

“You look like you could use some sleep, skald,” said the barkeep, a man with reddish-bronze skin. He had immense hairy arms and a bald head. His speech revealed the lilting accent of New Amazonia. “I’ve got a few cots in the back if you’ve got the credits. Be an honor to have you.”

Garth shook his head, not meeting the man’s eyes. The ice in his drink tinkled as he set down the glass.

“All right, but you look like you’re going to drive right into a ravine if you keep going.”

Garth took up his drink again. His hands shook. He was a rogue now; he had shunned his rider two days ago. Sleep was unthinkable.

As he finished his drink and coded a tip into the barkeep’s account, another skald came into the tavern. A wave of greenhouse heat and humidity gusted in the open door with her. The fetid smells of the jungle outside eluded the thrumming air conditioners for a time.

Garth sensed her before he turned, feeling the increased agitation of Fryx. The rider, trapped in the skull of a rogue, desperately wanted to communicate with another of its kind. Garth screwed up his eyes and bared his teeth as nerves flared with red pain. Garth knew that Fryx would never kill or seriously damage his host, but he could freely use pain as a goad.

The skald stepped up to the bar and took a stool beside him. Garth turned away, pulling the wide-brimmed hat he had bought lower over his forehead.

“You’re the one,” said the skald quietly. Her voice was soft and melodious. “You’re the one my rider brought me here to find.”

Garth whirled. His sweating face and haunted, sunken eyes leered at her. “I want solitude.”

The woman was tall and thin in the way of the skalds. Her long limp hair hung to her waist. It was white and very fine. “No skald can ever have that,” she said with a slow shake of her head.

Garth grabbed up his drink and tossed it down. He sucked up a sphere of ice and rattled it about against teeth. With the relish of a man recently come from the desert he chewed it and swallowed. The cold explosion in his mouth helped ease the agony up higher in his head.

The skald’s eyes widened as she watched him. “You’re so-so uncontrolled, so unreserved-” suddenly, she gasped in understanding. “You’re a rogue.”

Garth grinned at her, his eyes doing a wild fluttering roll before refocusing on her face. He removed his hat with an almost drunken flourish. “Yes, meet Garth the rogue, pretty one.”

She drew back, aghast and fascinated. “I am Kris and I bear Tuux. What is your rider’s name? I see by the mounting stripe on your face that you bear a great rider.”

“My rider’s identity is unimportant,” slurred Garth. His shoulders rolled and his fingers writhed seemingly of their own accord. “What is significant,” he hissed out in agony, “is that he plays on my nerves like a player plucking at a harp just now. I must ask you to leave me, he seems bent on torturing me in your presence.”

“He wants only to communicate with another rider, I’m sure. Let Tuux contact him,” she pleaded. She placed her hand on his. “He must feel so alone, so isolated. Your conduct is most disrespectful.”

“No,” Garth hissed, pulling back from her touch as he would the fanged mouth of a leaf serpent. The skin of his hand burned and tingled. Standing, he reeled toward the exit.

“If the militia pull you over, don’t tell them you came from here,” shouted the barkeep, shaking his head.

Kris quietly followed him, biting her lip.

Garth drove the lurching ground vehicle further into the jungles of New Amazonia. He passed by several settlements on the way, ignoring the reclusive inhabitants who gaped at him as they did all outsiders. Beneath the dark green canopy of the tropical hork-trees fantastic creatures hooted, howled, trumpeted and screeched. Howlers dented his vehicle with heavy seedpods. Leaf serpents dropped into the roadway, attacking the car in the belief that they were defending their territory. Garth crushed the seedpods and the serpents with equal disregard, his overriding concern being the need to stay awake.

Over a hundred miles out from the settlement where he had met Kris and rested, a large vehicle normally used for hauling timber approached from behind. The stabbing sensations in his mind let him know instantly that Fryx sensed the nearness of another rider. He had been expecting this, clearly Kris and Tuux had gathered what help they could to hunt him down.

He shoved the power rod upward, braking sharply. The car shuddered, became difficult to control. Stabilizers whined in protest. He swerved off the road and into the undergrowth. The car bucked and lurched, steering became almost impossible. Fighting the controls, he managed to guide the car into a narrow gully. Fronds lashed the car, probing into the broken windshield like green fingers.

Out of the greenery stepped a monster. Standing erect, directly in front of him, stood a male bald jungle ape of terrific size. In panic, he swerved the car wildly and hit the rocky wall of the gully. The front end crushed inward and he was ejected into the leafy undergrowth. Inside his head Fryx screamed in mortal terror.

Stunned, he lay on a bed of moss. A trickle of water dribbled over his back from somewhere high above in the forest canopy. Whining insects crawled on his skin and tasted his sweat. Out on the road the hauler stopped where he had entered the jungle and there was the sound of heavy boots on the pavement. Men shouted to one another as they entered the forest to pursue him. He shifted his head a fraction, but could see no sign of the jungle ape.

“He’s back here somewhere, see the path he’s carved through the jungle?”

Shouts came from his pursuers as they followed his trail and found the mouth of the gully. Garth remained prone, fearing the dark form of the jungle ape more than any group of men. Men might be reasoned with.

“Over here!” cried the melodious voice of Kris. “I’ve found the car. It appears to be wrecked.”

The men appeared now on the fringe of Garth’s vision. They were strong-looking men of the forest, not the thin pallid forms of skalds. Two held rifles while the third toted a hand-cannon. Soon the man with the hand-cannon, seemingly the leader, discovered Garth where he lay in the undergrowth.

“Is this the man who raped you?” he demanded, prodding Garth’s inert form with the barrel of his hand-cannon.

Garth listened with only half an ear. He thought to see the flickering of a dark shape along the edge of the gully.

“Well-he,” began Kris in a troubled voice. Garth knew that she battled against her rider to tell the truth. “He needs help.”

“Come now, girl,” said the man with the hand-cannon. “You can’t be soft with him now.”

Even as they spoke, Garth felt a huge soft shadow fall over them. He cringed involuntarily, unable to play dead any longer.

“Hey, he’s waking up-” began the leader, then broke off into a hoarse shout of surprise. Incoherent shouting erupted from all of them. A heavy wash of foul air swept over Garth.

He glanced over his shoulder to see the leader being lifted up into the trees in a great black fist. His jungle boots dangled, dribbling moist earth. The hand-cannon barked twice, then there was a crunching sound. The body dropped down into the undergrowth beside Garth, flopping unnaturally like a crushed doll.

Running back toward the road, the other men fired their rifles in panic. Garth had to fight an overwhelming urge to join them in their flight. His rider helped him lay still; sending soothing, numbing sensations down his spine to his legs.

The men were caught up in massive fists and borne aloft into the red hork treetops. The incredibly thick trunks shuddered and swayed with the passage of a huge shadowy form. The foliage thrashed and branches snapped. A single heavy grunt sounded from far above.

Silence reigned over the jungle for several minutes. Not even the most brazen of the cackle-grouse dared to cry out. During this entire time, Garth continued to lay supine on the moss-bed, trying to ignore the stream of marcher-bugs that had decided to use his back as a shortcut.

“Is it gone?” came a whisper.

Garth shifted his head a fraction in surprise. His eyes slid upward as far as they could and he made out the pallid bare feet of Kris only a few feet away across the jungle floor. She too, lay motionless, feigning death.

“It watches us,” he whispered back. “It’s somewhere above, crouching in the treetops.”

Both of them were silent for a time, listening to the wild sounds of the jungle. Evening was coming and the howlers were beginning their twilight serenade. Talking became more feasible with the covering cacophony of sound.

“I’m sorry to have led these men to chase you. It seemed so imperative that I told them anything to gain their aid.”

“Now you have gained only their deaths and perhaps ours as well,” replied Garth, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Tuux and I apologize to you and Fryx.”

Garth’s lips curled back in disgust. “It was Tuux that coerced you into following me. I accept nothing from any of his kind.”

“You are indeed a rogue.”

“Yes,” replied Garth, blinking back exhaustion. “For so long as I can remain awake.”

They were both silent for a time, listening for movement in the distant treetops. The light that filtered down to the jungle floor dwindled somewhat with the approach of nightfall, but the heat continued, relentless.

Suddenly, something occurred to Garth. He half-turned to face Kris before checking himself. He noted that she was only partially covered by her torn clothing and quite attractive, even in her disheveled state. “How did you know I carry Fryx?” he demanded.

“The greatness of your stripe,” Kris said with the tiniest of shrugs.

“No, no,” he said, laying his head back down in the moss. “Many riders are as large. You reported me back to the greatest of the skalds, back in their shrines. From my description and whereabouts they identified me. I have no doubt that you told the Jarl himself.”

Kris made no attempt to answer.

“Soon, they will hunt for me, and due to your proximity, they will expunge you as well. Consorting with a rogue can be infectious. We will both be handled roughly.”

Kris, knowing the truth of his words, wept quietly for a time.

Garth chided himself not to soften. He refused to even look at her. Lying on the jungle floor, listening to the howlers and feeling the steady tread of the marcher-bugs, Garth slid helplessly into the oblivion of sleep for the first time in days.

Fryx awoke when Kris cried out. It was still dark, but the howlers had fallen silent. Near at hand, he caught a glimpse of Kris’ pallid form rising up swiftly into the air. Fryx goaded Garth’s exhausted body into flight, but he too was snatched up in a hairy black fist. Moving with sickening speed, the jungle ape bore them hundreds of feet up into the hork trees. Sure-footedly, it trotted along branches as wide as highways, leaping from tree to tree.

The constricting fingers held him so tightly and the beast’s stench was so foul that Fryx had difficulty forcing Garth to retain consciousness. His terror of the crude outer creatures had never been greater. Soon, he felt sure, he would have to abandon the crushed husk of Garth’s body. A rider feared little more than being exposed to the open air and unknowable dangers of breathing creatures. He would most assuredly wither and perish, an ignoble ending to a magnificent life span filled with philosophical achievement. It was enough to set his spines to quivering.

In desperation, Fryx did his utmost to reach out to the monster, to touch its brutish mind and perhaps nudge it in the proper fashion. He did his best to generate an aura of curiosity about Garth, suggesting that perhaps this creature was fascinating and worthy of study.

Whether due to his feeble efforts at telepathy or to some other dark motive of its own, the ape didn’t kill them out of hand. Instead it deposited the two humans in its nest, a stinking bowl of mud, leaves, half-eaten carcasses and feces.

Gasping, Fryx sought Kris and led her up to a more wholesome spot in the nest, presumably the spot where the animal slept. Under the scrutiny of a shadowy mound of flesh, they curled up together, massaging their bruised ribs. After a minute or two, during which they could only listen to and smell the bellowing breath of the giant simian, it made its decision. Leaping backward smoothly, it fell out into open space. They heard branches below creak and swish as the creature caught itself and moved away through the treetops.

Kris rolled apart from him and sighed in relief. “I believed myself dead. How will we ever get down?”

Fryx allowed Garth to say nothing. His hold on his host had disintegrated greatly of late. Allowing the rogue’s speech centers to operate was out of the question. Even interpreting her words was an unwelcome strain. Eyes bulging in the darkness, he reached out and grasped her wrists.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, squirming to get away.

Fryx drove Garth to climb on top of her, ignoring her efforts to escape. Their touch allowed him to communicate with Tuux, and Kris immediately quieted. Her rider allowed Kris to shed her human inhibitions and she quickly became amorous. In the way of communion between skalds of opposite sexes, they mated most vigorously on the crude bed of moldering hork-leaves and black animal hair.

The next morning found them entwined together with the cackle-grouse making a great deal of noise in the treetops around them. The bald ape, to the best of their knowledge, had not returned.

Garth was surprised to find that he was in command of himself. He suspected that Fryx had been over-taxed by the previous evening’s activities and had receded somewhat to recover. Maintaining control of the skald’s body was a constant mental battle for both of them.

“Look, there’s blood here,” he pointed out to Kris. “Fresh blood, and yet no signs of a recent kill.”

Kris shrugged disinterestedly. She kept her eyes lowered. Her limp white hair hung in her face.

“Maybe the beast was badly wounded yesterday,” said Garth with fresh hope. “Perhaps it could even have died during the night.”

“Or perhaps it is only the blood of the men I led to their deaths.”

“Ah, disregard that,” Garth chided her gently. He turned to her and noticed her sullen appearance. “You were goaded by your rider-as we both were last night.”

She turned away from him further.

“You’re upset about our communion?” asked Garth quietly. He felt a small knot of guilt. He had enjoyed the activities, but not the way they had come about.

“I am embarrassed.”

Garth nodded. “Put it out of your mind. Or better yet, use it to turn rogue against your rider.”

She whirled on him. Her white hair shone in the sun. “That’s why I’m upset. This whole thing has got me thinking like you. The philosophies of my rider now seem like nothing but idle platitudes. It is clear that association with a rogue is indeed dangerous.”

Garth shrugged and climbed to stand on the rim of the nest. “It makes no difference to those who will now seek us whether you’ve turned rogue or not. Certainly, you realize you are to be expunged.”

“Then I must leave you, we must part ways.”

Garth shook his head. “If you believe that then you don’t know the inquisitors as I do. Have you ever seen them in pursuit of a rogue?”

“No,” she admitted.

“They are ruthless and thorough. They will have full accountings from all skalds involved, coerced by their riders into giving exact testimony. Your current feelings combined with my influence will be your undoing.”

After this Kris fell silent and moody, while Garth searched for a way down from the jungle ape’s nest. The equatorial variety of the great horks was the largest. They dominated the plant growth in the ecosystem, and were in fact ecosystems unto themselves. Whole species of animals had evolved that relied particularly to a given stratum of the great horks, which often towered over five hundred feet into the air. Every branch and leaf of these living islands teemed with insects and parasitic plants. Garth kept a sharp eye out for the deadly leaf-snakes, but none seemed interested in approaching the nest.

A careful search of the nest revealed the badly mangled corpse of a forester. One of his power-boots still remained, rekindling hope in both of them.

“We can use this to drop down from the trees safely,” she said, excitedly testing the slid controls on the top of the boot. Although bent and scored they were operable.

“There’s only one boot and two of us,” he said doubtfully. “How will we balance well enough to get down without destabilizing and falling to our deaths?”

Kris made an impatient gesture, already strapping the boot to the belt around her midsection. “I live in this region. I have passed all the basic survival courses, don’t worry.”

Worrying strongly, Garth followed her directions, lying on top of her while she lay on the boot. Delicately, she adjusted the angle of the boot and pushed the power control slider to the maximum. Giving a desperate groan of fear, he allowed himself to fall from the side of the nest, clinging to Kris and the power-boot.

They fell together in slow motion. Even set to maximum power, the boot couldn’t force them to rise, although it did manage to turn their fall into a gentle drifting descent.

“You certainly are heavy for a skald,” she said, gasping for breath.

To Garth’s relief, Kris didn’t attempt to drop all the way to the forest floor, but rather made short trips from one major branch to another. Howlers pelted them with debris and leaf-serpents hissed as they passed. Cackle-grouse, resplendent in their yellow and crimson plumage, sought to bomb them with guano. Their odd, laughter-like cries soon became tiresome.

After perhaps half an hour of drifting in the humid air of the jungle, they reached the ground. Garth stamped about in pleasure, enjoying the feel of solid land against his feet. They made their way toward the highway, which they had caught a glimpse of during the long flight downward.

Not far from the base of the great hork tree, they found the body of the great ape. A vast mound of furred flesh it was, already being eaten away by scavengers. Long black hair covered the creature from head to foot, save for its leathery face and the white-skinned bald spot on the peak of its pointed head.

“I guessed right,” whispered Garth in a hushed voice. “The gunshot wounds finally took their toll.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s dead. It killed three good men.”

Massive wounds showed in the creature’s head and neck. Part of its cheek was blown away, revealing a mouthful of gleaming white teeth.

“Such an impressive creature. We seem so puny in comparison,” said Garth. Gingerly, he climbed up onto the broad chest and stood there, rubbing his chin. “It seems such a waste.”

Kris snorted. “It would have eaten us before the night was out if it had survived. These beasts relish live food and often store prey in their nests for later. I’m surprised that it didn’t snap our legs to prevent escape, that is what they usually do, or so I’m told.”

“Probably, it was distracted by its injuries,” said Garth. He climbed down from the hairy mountain of death. “Come, let’s get back to the road before other less pleasant things begin to stalk us.”

“What could be less pleasant?”

“There are more horrid things about on Garm, even now,” said Garth. “My rider has intimated this to me over the last few days, mostly in dreams, or during our most intense battle for control. This is what Fryx fears as much as death itself, I believe. The threat from the skies has driven him and I into disharmony.”

“You don’t seem to battle Fryx now as you did earlier.”

“No. I believe this is due to the fact that I’ve decided to listen to his desperate warnings. I won’t relinquish my body completely again without a struggle, but I will head for the South Pole, as he wants me to. As long as I travel this way, I think he will restrain his desire to control me.”

Scrambling over a tree root the size of a flitter, Kris asked, “Do you not miss the philosophical heights to which only a rider can take a human?”

“Yes, at times, although I’ve had precious little time to consider it.”

They reached the gully and Garth’s wrecked air car. Hunting about, they managed to find the hand-cannon and one of the rifles. Taking up the unfamiliar weapons, they found the hauler still sitting beside the road. They climbed in and soon were winding deeper into the jungle toward New Chad.

Garth took the time to tell Kris of the horrors that Fryx had intimated to him. Both parties tactfully avoided all discussion of the previous evening’s activities, although Garth noted that he was treating her differently and he thought to notice a similar change in her manner. As he sat in the hauler’s cab with her for long hours, free for the first time in days of his rider’s constant abuses, he took the time to study her face sidelong. She was indeed attractive.

It was the following evening at camp deep in the jungles that Fryx began to trouble him again. A stabbing pain seemed to exist directly behind his left eye, causing him to blink and twitch in an unnatural fashion. Itching spasms traversed his spine at regular intervals, making it almost impossible to eat or sleep.

“What does Fryx want now?” asked Kris in concern.

“He would like to commune again with Tuux,” slurred Garth, leering. The left half of his face clenched up in an unnatural manner.

Kris looked away.

“I’m sorry,” sighed Garth, trying to regain all of his mind. “I think he wants to commune with me.” With shaking hands he produced his skire, which he hadn’t had the heart to destroy. Placing the reed to his lips he began to play.

Fryx was right there, aiding with every note. Clear beautiful tones sounded in the humid night. A group of howlers somewhere in the forest hooted a contemptuous response.

For a time it was as it had been before with Fryx. Garth exalted in close communion, the music of his skire filling everything with rose-colored joy. While Kris looked on happily, he pranced about the fire they had lit, playing his skire as a satyr would play his pipes. His rider intimated further details concerning the Imperium and their fantastic aggressions of the past. Images of entire worlds enslaved and burning filled his mind. Dark ships sailed out of the void to devastate unsuspecting worlds, exterminating spindly bipedal creatures that bore riders in their skulls, as did skalds. Garth learned that these ancient hosts of the riders had perished in a fantastic war with the Imperium that had lasted for a thousand years.

So entranced was he, that at first he didn’t hear Kris’ cries of distress. Shots rang out from the forest and he saw her frail body collapse in upon itself, folding up like a holo-image when the power is cut off. Blood pumped between her fingers. She looked into his eyes with horror and agony. Some dim part of his mind realized with cold logic that they had gut-shot her so that she would take a long time to die.

Making an odd, croaking noise, Garth stumbled away from the campfire. Fryx goaded him to stay put, to wait for the inquisitors to join them and perform the necessary extractions. Bucking like a wild horse, he lurched and shambled into the trees. He crashed through black-green walls of vegetation.

The shadowy jungle night swallowed him up whole. There was no possibility of immediate pursuit. Taking up refuge in the hollow bole of a fallen tree, he pressed the barrel of his hand-cannon to his forehead and wept profusely.

Inside his skull, the spiny gelatin that was Fryx writhed in fear. Half of Garth’s face sneered in grim delight while the other half sagged in grief.