Call Me Ishmael

Chapter 16

Author's Note: Always wear your seatbelt in a moving vehicle.  You can buy this book at Amazon, B&N, and at Smashwords for any other device.

“Eaten!”

“Yes.  It will be so.”

“Why would you eat her?  What’s wrong with you?”

Graw the Unseemly looked confused.  “We will eat her because it is our way.  Also, she looks as though she will be delicious, especially if toasted.”

I could not conceive of those perfect shoulders, those long legs, those delicate, beautiful fingers, being anything beyond a sun-bronzed tan.  After all, that was the only way I knew Finnie, and I preferred for her to stay just that way.  To think that in any dimension, no matter how strange, how aliens, there would be beings who would eat Finnie, was devastating.  I staggered a little bit, but bore up, determined not to faint in front of this Unseemly Graw.

“Okay, okay, I’ve heard enough, Graw.  Take us to the Swarm.  Come on, Bety, Splice; we’ve got to save Finnie.”

Bety nodded and headed for the Bugrider. 

Splice held back.  “What if they already ate her?  We’d just be wasting our time and putting ourselves in danger.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.  “What do you think we should do, then?  Just leave her?”

Splice blinked twice, and her hair flamed bright red.  “No.  Well, yes, I guess.  Listen, how are we supposed to save her from a swarm?  There are only three of us.  We should go back to Base.  Maybe your father has figured another way to trigger the device.”

“No.  I’m not leaving Finnie.”  I pulled the gun from my holster.  It was large, heavy, and warm, almost like I had just fired it.  “We’re saving Finnie, or we die trying.”

“You can’t make my choice for me, Ishmael.”

That gave me pause.  “You're right.  But listen, Splice.  Somewhere, somewhen; you’ve left Finnie to die.  But not here. Here, make the right choice and help us save her.”

Splice chewed on her lip.  I could almost hear her striking her mental keyboard, trying to compute the odds of success, survival, and more.  I’m more flesh and blood than that, and had found I could act without needing to analyze.  There was no more time to waste.  “I’m gone,” I announced.  I climbed aboard the Bugrider, and Graw followed me.  Bety crawled up behind me.

“Please make room; I need to reach the controls,” Graw stated. 

I had no idea how to drive the thing, so I made room.

Bety sat in the rear of the brass-appearing compartment, tapping his ax on the side.  “Last chance, Splice.  I know you think I’m disgusting…” He paused, burped, and motioned.  “But come on.  If anything goes wrong, for revenge I’m going to eat Graw the Unseemly, and I’ll need someone to slice potatoes.”

Splice vibrated for a few moments more, shook her head, and crawled up the foreleg of the Bugrider.  “Come on,” she snapped, “Let’s get this thing going before I change my mind.  I'd like to see how it works, anyway.”

I smiled at her, but she only glared back.  I decided to soothe her with a compliment.  I have found that anytime a woman gets angry with me, the anger can be handled with a compliment of some sort.  It was really immaterial whether it was about her hair, her figure, her intellect, or anything else.  In fact, the compliment doesn’t even need to be halfway true, because deep inside, the woman already believes it.  Now, this trick did not work with every sort of anger, every single time.  It is useless with blind rage; for example, when a woman is coming at you with a pickaxe and murderous intent.  The best thing then is to simply run, as my first experience at teaching in a public school proved.  Still, most of the time, you can buy a few moments of time to come up with a more permanent solution.  I tried the compliment, and since Splice seemed to be technologically inclined, I tilted it that direction.  “I bet you could build a bug like this, couldn’t you, Splice?”  It was awkward, but it was the best I could do at the time. 

“You think you’re such a much, Ishmael.  I don’t think you have the slightest clue about what goes into even the most basic circuit, so don’t patronize me.  It might work in your dimension, but it’s fezz up the bakeliter here.  Or, where I come from.  You know what I mean.”

Bety leaned forward and leered.  “I could really get to like you, Splice, if you were a little more ladylike.  The tail doesn’t help; you know what I mean?  Get it?  It doesn’t help.”  He roared with laughter.

Splice froze the air between them with a stare.  I cleared my throat as the Bugrider lifted straight up into the brown air.

“How far to the Swarm, Graw?  Will we make it before they eat Finnie?”

Graw looked at me with his strange, jeweled eyes, and moved his steering lever.  I don’t know what he called it, but it looked like we turned in response to his moving it.  If he had had lips, and a tongue, I would say he licked them, but since he seemed to have neither, it was difficult to read his emotions.  In fact, it was impossible. 

We flew through the air with the greatest of ease, the wind in our faces, and Splice’s hair twinkling like a basket full of pink autumn stars.  Ahead, I could see brown flakes filling the sky, and the effect was striking, like watching a dirty snowfall cover up a freshly plowed field.  I squinted, and just beyond the swirling flakes, I could dimly make out a dull glow, a burnished, coppery sort of glow that seemed to ooze toward us. 

“Well, I guess we’re getting close,” I suggested.

Graw the Unseemly nodded.  “Yes.  The Swarm is near.”

Bety coughed and spit a large glob of phlegm into his hand.  He studied it for a moment, and then tossed it over the side.  “I suppose you have a plan, Ishmael.  This won’t be a simple rabbit hunt.  And speaking of that, I bet my dear wife has probably given me up for dead and buried a lock of my hair under the old tree in the forest we carved our marks on.  Maybe she’s even found another man.”  The grizzled warrior wiped away a tear, and rubbed his back on the edge of the Bugrider’s seat, trying to reach an itch.

“Don’t,” said Splice.  “I don’t want to be sick again.”

The truth was, I was not really listening.  I watched Graw, and realized he was also watching me, with at least some of his eyes.  And as we drew closer and closer to the Swarm, I admitted to myself that I had no plan at all.  I was like a writer with no plot, no design, and no plan, who just kept putting words on paper and hoping things will come out all right.  The only difference between myself and that author was that he could erase or delete his words and start over, or just throw away his tale and begin fresh.  I, however, was in a speeding Bugrider with a disgusting refugee warrior named Bety; a fiber-optic haired girl who could probably fix any computer in any dimension and whose feet packed a fight-club worth of punch; and a creature with crystal eyes.  I was in a fix, with no author to write me out of it.  I was making it up as I went along.  “A plan.  Yes, Bety.  Wait a bit, though.” 

Bety nodded.

Well, I thought to myself, this had better be good.

 Author's note: You can still buy this book at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.  You can follow me on twitter, but you can't like my Facebook page because I'm Facebook-free!  For more information, see http://lostowl62.wix.com/erickflaig for my soon-coming newletter.  Thank you for your support!