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  Where did this stranger come from? Was he some new breed of Bhajong? Some new threat? Rian did not feel comfortable making the determination. He was a fighter, a warrior, a man of action. But the Elders of the Enclave might have an interest in such an unusual specimen. They might be able to discover something crucial about him, worm from him some new plot of the Bhajong parasites.

  The stranger jerked his head north, eyes widening. A moment later Rian heard the sound, slow, sonorous, rhythmic. A steady thrumming on his inner ear. The acrid stench of fear seeped from his skin.

  “Ool! Come on. You’re coming with me.” He touched the man’s flank with his lancepoint. The stranger jumped, turning to look him in the eye. Rian growled, baring his teeth. “Now. There’s no time to waste. If you won’t come, I’ll spit you here and now and leave you for the ool to digest. The others will be waiting for me.”

  The man touched his side, smearing blood across pristine, pinkish skin.

  Rian had begun to think he would have to make good on his threat when the stranger began walking toward the narrow, boulder-strewn path leading up from the gully. Keeping his spear poised inches from the man’s back, Rian followed.

  Back within the relative shelter of the seeping tree, Rian watched as the ool crested the ring of hills and moved slowly across the sky. Its massive body, nearly a mile long and half as wide, resembled nothing so much as a rotting tumor. Its mottled, humped flesh pulsed, breathed, and twitched; serpentlike tendrils crawled along its flanks. Immense bladders filled with buoyant gases lined its topside, expanding and contracting as the ool propelled itself across the sky. Its foretentacles trailed across hilltops and slid into the low valleys.

  The landskin rippled in the suction from the feeder tentacles, and boulders cracked. A tree, ripped up from its roots by the suction, shot into a gaping tentacle. The dull thrumming sound intensified, becoming almost painful to hear. The mass of purplish-blue, tumorlike flesh pulsed and throbbed like some immense, distorted organ. Its gas bladders expanded and contracted, sucking in air, filtering it, and jetting it out behind, propelling the mass across the sky.

  That people lived inside that grotesque creature was an abomination, a perversion of nature. But were the Bhajong truly people?

  “Another?” Rian whispered. “Ool travel singly.” He turned to the naked stranger. Rian had bound his hands together, and now the stranger sat staring at the thick rope wrapped around his wrists.

  The ool floated closer, blotting out the newly risen quarter- moon, blanketing the stars. The sounds of its consuming rose in volume, a roar of shifting boulders and trees, wrenched up from the bones of the land. Waste, expelled from the sphincters at the ool’s rear, showered in a hail of rubble and debris behind the mass. The land shook.

  A fore-tentacle, nearly a hundred feet in diameter and more than a mile long, thrashed along the floor of the gully, sucking away at newly birthed boulders and exposed, ravaged roots of plucked trees. Others dragged deep furrows in the raw earth, cutting a miles-wide swath.

  Close, thought Rian. Too close.

  “Come!” he shouted over the rising tide of sound. “We’re too close. We’ll get sucked in.”

  The stranger stared at him with a look of incomprehension. Rian poked him in the calf with his lance. “To your feet. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  The stranger rose. He followed Rian from the seeping tree. One of the thorny branches slipped away from Rian’s outthrust lance, slapping back into the stranger’s chest. He grunted and collapsed to his rear in the shadowed bower, staring at the blood that seeped from a hundred punctures in his torso.

  With a sigh, Rian turned and jerked the stranger to his feet, pulling him bodily through the screen of saw-edged leaves. Raising his lance crosswise, he kept most of the branches and leaves from them. Those few leaves that popped from their stems bounced harmlessly from Rian’s tunic, but sliced into the stranger’s skin.

  Beyond the seeping tree, Rian led his captive along a game trail that climbed higher into the hills, toward the waypoint the salvage crew had established earlier. The glow-rod lit their way. The man followed along complacently enough, although Rian had to keep vigilant watch on where the stranger put his feet. Several times the creature slipped, fell, and opened new wounds on his naked body. By the time they reached the heights, bruises, welts, and cuts covered the stranger’s skin.

  He forced the stranger to his haunches beneath the sheltering overhang of an exposed boulder. Rian knelt beside him, his sporelance held ready across his knees, and waited for the ool to pass. He could not risk communication with his party as long as the creature remained in the area.

  When the ool’s thrumming finally faded away, Rian checked his prisoner once more, then crept from the shelter and stood on the heights, scanning the terrain for signs of his cadre. With another ool in the area, the crash site would become increasingly dangerous. Bhajong raiders would descend, scrambling over the remains like a horde of insects. Any Gagash caught in the area would be hard-pressed to escape. Standard protocol should send Rian’s cadre scurrying for the heights and the relative safety of the Enclave beyond the high, ringing walls of rock. From there the Gagash could snipe at any marauding Bhajong that descended from the ool.

  Rian frowned and turned to look at his captive. The creature sat unmoving in the niche, staring at his bound hands, an expression of curiosity scrawled on his bland features. What was he? The question had no easy answers here in the field. But perhaps the Elders could fathom his mystery.

  Having decided, Rian knelt and used his sporelance to score the landskin surrounding the islands of rock. The caustic residue embedded in the blade forced the landskin to pull back, withdraw, exposing a patch of pebbly soil. Rian pulled a bundle of markers from his belt pouch and set them within the opening in the landskin. The boreworm spoor in the markers would keep the landskin at bay. Inside the ring of markers Rian left a coded message ordering his cadre back to the Enclave.

  “Come,” he said, standing and prodding at the stranger’s thigh with the butt-end of the sporelance. He gestured toward the east, where the land spilled down into an area of fens and mist-shrouded bogs. “This way.”

  The stranger made no argument, standing and staring at Rian as if deprived of wits. Rian nudged him down the slope, toward the fens, and the Enclave.

  As they climbed down into the valley the sounds died out, lost beneath the cries of birds and the buzzing hum of the boreworm swarms that shared the valley with the Enclave.

  “Careful here,” Rian said, wondering why he bothered. The stranger showed not the slightest comprehension. He picked their path carefully to avoid the boreworm entrenchments. “There are things almost as bad as ool here.”

  A drake coughed in the dense forest, close, hunting. The stranger jerked to a halt. He gazed into the tangled undergrowth.

  “It’s too far to trouble us. Besides, they’re more bark than bite.” He patted his lance and dagger, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded. Even armed with his sporelance, he would not want to encounter one of the massive drakes. Those mobile mounds of landskin were ready enemies. With his middle arm he pointed toward the east. “The Enclave’s that way. We’re not far.” He stopped, and, frowning, noted the stranger’s shifting attention.

  The stranger raised his bound arms and looked at the center of his own chest as if wondering at their differences. For the first time an expression played across his features. A frown, mirroring Rian’s own.

  “Yes. We’re different,” Rian said. “You’ve never seen a Gagash before?”

  The man continued staring, oblivious.

  What must I look like to him? Symmetry was an alien concept among the Gagash, save for the Elders. Rian’s own mutations were mild; his third arm, sprouting from the center of his chest and rippling with muscles, was the most obvious. He felt a moment of confusion, wondering why the hot tide of shame crept over him. He pushed aside the urge to hide his deformities, scowled beneath his heavy browridge, an
d snarled, baring sharp teeth.

  “Get used to differences, creature. Where you’re going, you will be the oddity.” He tapped the man on his shins with the butt of his spear. “Come on. Get those feet moving. It’s not far, but with night upon us, I’d rather be beneath ground.”

  Chapter 2

  Lady Dersi clung to a cluster of tertiary capillaries with one gloved hand while she moved into position to saw at the polyp with her knife. A slow movement of the ool shook the interior of the artery, and she almost lost her balance. She stepped over a fleshwave that rippled through the drained artery. She could feel Master Erekel’s gaze burning into her back, and she blinked to clear her eyes of a sudden sweat.

  “No. No no no! That’s all wrong. Like this,” Erekel said. He snatched the resin knife from Dersi’s hand. He grabbed the polyp at its base, pulled until the flesh stretched taut, and quickly severed it from the arterial wall in one stroke. The severed stump snapped back into the wall, oozing a thick, viscous fluid that would seal the wound in moments. Erekel held up the writhing polyp. “See? Quick, or the arterial wall could be permanently damaged. Or, worse, the polyp membrane can develop a lesion, leaking acid. You don’t want to get the acid on your skin.”

  Lady Dersi held up her hand, sheathed in a thick, elbow-length glove of jellied ool mucus. She glanced at Erekel, outlined by the phosphorescent glow of the arterial wall. The grizzled veteran’s skin was deeply lined, his pale hair brittle as it fell to his shoulders. He blinked pale blue eyes in the face of her unspoken question. For a moment his eyes met hers, and Dersi could almost see a smile lurking beneath his harsh veneer. But then his gaze slid away, and his face reverted to its habitual scowl.

  Erekel shook his head. “Yes, yes. Of course. The basal contrast neutralizes the acid, but that’s beside the point.” He scowled, reversed the resin knife, and used its pommel to jab in Dersi’s direction. “That’s the problem with you youngsters: always looking for the quick, easy way. Too much reliance on technology, I think. Whether or not the gloves neutralize the acid, you still should make an effort to do the job right. And if the acid lands on your flesh above the gloves? What then, little miss? It’s burn straight through to the bone, that’s what.”

  “Of course, Master Erekel,” Dersi said, lowering her eyes in the wake of the old man’s tirade. “I’ll try harder.”

  Erekel’s eyes softened. He looked away again. Finally, grunting, he thrust the knife back at Lady Dersi. She took it, sheathing it at her side beside the other tools of the harvesters’ trade: the forceps, the sutures and antiseptic compounds, dozens of other implements, some metal, and a like number of chemicals. She fished out a shallow tub and screwed off its lid. Dipping her fingers into the thick gel within the tub, she scooped out a wad of odorless sealant. Erekel passed her the writhing polyp, and she spread the sealant across its dripping nether end, squeezing tight until the compound closed off the wound.

  “Are you going to take all day with that one polyp, Dersi?” Erekel growled. She looked up to find him staring at her from some distance ahead along the arterial passage. He gave a tug on the tetherline. She jogged a few steps toward him to keep from stumbling to the spongy floor. “Get a move on.”

  She glanced down at the purplish, now-quiescent polyp and tucked it through the leather loop on her harness belt, alongside the half-dozen others they had harvested. Tugging her gloves tighter, she followed in Erekel’s footsteps, careful to avoid the pools of welling fluid in the low places, between the ropy, squirming strands of new growth.

  Erekel paused at an intersection and pulled out a detailed map of this area. Dersi, joining him, looked over his shoulder at the drawing in red and blue ink, tracing the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the mazelike interior of the ool. The functional corridors were picked out in blue, the active circulatory system in red. Ahead, along the blue line they followed, the passage opened up into one of the drained subhearts, the chambers empty and used primarily for the sifting of mineral deposits for useable material.

  “Damn,” Erekel said.

  “What?”

  He reached up and touched the arterial wall, pressing with enough force that the spongy flesh sucked at his hand. “There’s supposed to be an emptied capillary here. The ool must have closed it off and begun repairs.”

  “Does that happen often?” She had heard of such things, of course, but had labored under the impression that it was a rare phenomenon. Certainly in the areas set aside for the comforts of the Lords, maintained by companies of workers, such things never occurred. She touched the arterial wall below where Erekel’s hand lay. The flesh gave slightly, springing back when she removed her hand. Purplish ichor leaked out in a sheet, instantly hardening, thickening the wall.

  He shook his head. “Not often. But it does happen.” He dug into one of the numerous pouches that studded his work harness and pulled out a collapsible saw. Unfolding it, Erekel warned, “You’d best hold on to something. There’s likely to be some localized disturbance.”

  Dersi nodded and pulled tethers from either hip of her harness, looping the hooks around hardened resin protuberances. She braced herself, bending slightly at the knees, and lowered her visor. Looking up, she found Erekel had likewise prepared.

  Erekel touched the saw’s point to the arterial wall and shoved, hard. The blade sank into the membrane. Thick, milky blood spurted, covering both of them. The corridor convulsed, vast musculature sending ripples along the emptied flesh. Dersi’s feet flew out from beneath her and she hung for a moment, supported only by the taut tethers. She twisted, trying to gain her balance.

  Erekel sawed at the raw flesh. It parted beneath the saw’s blade, pulling away from the microscopic boreworm contagion embedded in the teeth of the saw. The torn membrane bubbled and frothed, and a flow of ool blood washed into their corridor. Polyps sprang out of the vessel wall near the wound, the knobbed heads weaving about, searching for the boreworm infestation.

  “There,” said Erekel, folding the saw and replacing it in his beltpouch. “New polyps, ready for harvesting. And we’ve reopened the corridor. Well? What are you waiting for? Get to harvesting them.”

  Dersi waited until the last of the tremors subsided. She stared down the newly reopened capillary, watching the ool blood ooze into sphincters and drain away. She detached her tethers and picked her tools, getting to work.

  Several hours and two dozen freshly harvested polyps later, Dersi followed Erekel into the emptied heart chamber, climbing down the notched, hardened trunkline to the brittle floor. The surface crackled with her every step, breaking open with a gush of fluids, resetting in her wake. At the far end of the chamber, technicians raised mammoth filters from the bubbling pools of blood and moved them into position where another group of technicians, armed with long blades, scraped the dried, clinging material into vats. A third group of technicians worked the vats, separating out the usable minerals from the waste.

  “Take these to processing,” Erekel said, passing her his own load of weighty polyps. His face contorted with a begrudging smile. “You did satisfactorily, Lady Dersi. Not well, but that comes with practice, experience. In a few years you could be good.”

  “Thank you, Master Erekel,” she said, feeling the heat of the blush creeping over her face. “Thank you very much. You have no idea how much that means, coming from you.”

  He waved the compliment aside and turned away from her. He walked toward the technicians, trading companionable banter, friendly insults.

  Left with a double load of polyps, Dersi struggled beneath the weight and sought the main thoroughfare. A nearby tech pointed out the correct avenue, and Dersi lugged her burden toward a broad, high vein braced with the whole trunks of surface trees.

  “Lady Dersi? Lady Dersi!”

  Dersi turned at the sound of her name. A stoop-shouldered courier in the official brown coveralls of Veil Lords Service approached and bowed low. Rising, the thin-faced man frowned at her burden. “Lady Dersi!”

  Ders
i nodded. “I’m she. What is it?”

  “Lady, your honored father sends for you,” he said.

  “Is something wrong?” She resisted the impulse to drop everything and run home. “What is it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Lady. I’m not privy to Veil Lord Huldru’s motives, just his orders.”

  “Is he well, though?”

  The courier nodded. “Oh, yes. Yes, of course, Lady. Lord Huldru is well.”

  “Inform my father I’ll attend him shortly, then. As soon as I’ve dropped these off at processing.”

  The courier seemed uncomfortable. “Lady, I do believe Veil Lord Huldru’s summons takes precedence.”

  “But, these were just harvested . . .”

  He nodded in understanding. “I’ll see to their disposition, Lady.” He waved dismissively at the technicians swarming throughout the heart. “One of these can take them.”

  She hesitated for a moment, vacillating. Finally, well aware of the demands of duty and propriety, she sighed and unbuckled her harness, letting it fall to the tunnel floor. She took a moment to smooth out the wrinkles in her jumpsuit. “Where is the nearest throat? I’m not familiar with this area.”

  The courier pointed down the thoroughfare. “At the branching, take the left passage. There’s a throat at the end of the corridor.”

  “Very well,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder, spotting Erekel watching her. A frown crossed the man’s face and he turned away as if anxious at having been caught staring at her. Dersi felt her face color again. She turned away from the courier and set off down the thoroughfare.

  She passed a few technicians and workers on the way, and encountered a knot of folk at the intersection. Most of the pedestrians flowed along the main path. Dersi turned to the left and moved against the current of Bhajong. She ignored the buzz of conversation—much of it centered on her and her presence here among the working class—and kept her eyes focused forward. She allowed the sounds of the ool to mask the speech of the pedestrians, finding solace in the steady, pulsing thrum of the massive creature’s circulatory system, the periodic, subsonic hiss of its bellows. She found herself smiling.