Penult (The Liminality, Part Four)

Chapter 63: Loomis

Ubaldo fished a carved wooden device from the depths of his poncho-like garment, apparently some kind of polyphonic whistle.

"I should call the bugs?" he said.

"Nah. Not just yet," said Olivier. "Let's go a little farther on foot. Maybe we can sneak up on this Loomis place."

"We will need at least one beetle to carry the column," said Solomon.

"Well go get 'em. We do what we have to," said Olivier.

Georg went cliffside to call Rhino back from the beach where he had gone down to forage with the other bugs. Rhino came flying up dutifully and we strapped the cracker column to his carapace while Georg fed him some of the slop he had salvaged from the cisterns on the boat.

By the time we got going, the man on the scooter was well out of sight but we could still hear him whirring along somewhere over the next rise. Ubaldo walked point as usual with Karla and I right behind him. Olivier, Georg and Solomon followed behind Rhino. A case could be made that our sad little expeditionary force was indeed some sort of avant-garde micro-circus. I sure felt like a clown.

Karla kept offering her hand for me to take. I obliged her only because it was the path of least resistance and I did not want to cause a scene. But I dropped it every time I found a reasonable excuse, tightening the straps on my bundle, scratching my nose, whatever.

I was pretty sure by now that the rift between us would be permanent, though Karla was still all smiley and coy, acting like it was some minor and temporary disturbance. Knowing that my life was ebbing on the other side only made things worse.

I kept gazing back at the shore hoping to see Urszula and Mikal coming back, but the sky remained remarkably empty. That was weird considering all of the flying contraptions the Pennies had sent with the invasion force.

Rhino never flagged, but his progress was slow. Three legs pivoted at a time, hoisting his body and payload, thrusting them forward. It was kind of like watching NASA transport a rocket booster to a launching pad with one of those ultra-slow tractors. No way would we ever catch up with the scooter guy at this rate, but at least we had a fix on what direction he was going.

We had absolutely no warning of what would reveal itself over the next rise. The landscape was too green to call barren or desolate, but it was certainly under-populated. But when we topped the hill, at first I thought were looking at a mountain, a very jagged and glaciated mountain, full of icy spires and splintered bergs. But there was an order and regularity to the design that told us this was a creation of humans.

The city (or domain) of Loomis was arranged as neatly as a crystal. Layer upon layer of orderly polyhedrons rose in tier from a bedrock base riddled with uniform grottoes carved into the stone. The structures ranged from low-slung villas with little gardens to pale skyscrapers that seemed carved of ice or frosted glass. The tallest had jagged roofs that stabbed at the heavens like sword points. Their shadowed facets were tinged with blue and green highlights, like the seams of an ancient glacier.

A ring of lakes like a moat lie between us and the bulge of hill that held the city proper. Paddocks crammed with strange sheep-like creatures cross-hatched the slope leading down to the lakes. Something about their blunt snouts and big, sad, sentient eyes spooked me. These were not ordinary sheep.

"Jesus! What the heck kind of animals are these?" said Olivier.

"They are not animals," said Karla.

"God help them if the bugs get wind of them," said Georg.

"We can set the column right here," I said. "The quake would probably reach." I was thinking: get this thing done, get out of here and I could concentrate on fading and what to do about the damned ricin spreading through my body on the other side.

"Nah," said Olivier. "Let's get a little closer. I want to take that whole fucking place down like they took down Luthersburg. I want them to have a full swig of their own medicine."

We came to a branching of pathways and chose the steepest, most direct route to the valley bottom. It led to a causeway across one of the lakes, whose surface was almost flush with the water level. Still, there was no indication of any kind of guard post, defenses or surveillance of any sort. Penult had the markings of a land that had known only peace and order within its borders.

Well, that was all about to change. Olivier rushed ahead, eager as a kid on Christmas morning. Even I was getting pretty excited about setting off the column.

We caught up with Ubaldo and Olivier at the causeway where they had paused to assess the approach to the city. The causeway was seamless and made of the same bone-like material as the roads. The lake was crystal clear revealing a multitude of stripy fish with peach bellies browsing among water weeds.

Several scooters zipped by on one of the roads upslope, but no one seemed to notice us. A couple appeared on the meadow just above us, just strolling along hand in hand. There stares showed more amusement than fear. It all seemed too good to be true.

"We should call the bugs, before we start the quake," said Georg. "We don't want to be on the ground when this thing goes off."

"Your beetle can carry four of us no problem," said Solomon. "And James has the wings."

"My wasp will come when I need her," said Ubaldo, tapping the device around his neck.

"I'm thinking ... we should try and get a little closer still," said Olivier.

"I don't see why not," said Ubaldo. "We have yet to be challenged."

So we started across the causeway. It made me a bit nervous to be so exposed. With nowhere to run but directly forward or back, it would have been the perfect to strike us with their falcons.

A scooter rider stopped to watch us. Another and then another joined him until a small gaggle had accumulated.

Olivier couldn't stop grinning. "Look at these people! Nobody's got a clue what we're all about. I bet we could stroll right up to the city gates."

"We should set the column here," I said.

"Soon," said Olivier. "Let's just get just a little closer. Up on that road, maybe. It looks pretty important. Well-traveled."

We made it across the causeway. Karla again reached for my hand. This time I took hers gladly. I was getting nervous and in need of a little human contact. I glanced at her, and she looked right back, unsmiling. She was looking worried, too.

"What's wrong?" she said. I kept my lips pursed tight. Her question startled me. I wasn't sure how to interpret it. Was she talking about us or just things in general? I just kept lips pursed tight. Either way, there was nothing I could say that would portray the full complexity of my anxieties.

As we started up the slope, something clanged and chimed in the distance. It was a pretty sound, like church bells sounding a mildly dissonant chord in unison. The white spires of the city underwent a subtle change. The blue-green glacial tint of their more shadowy recesses turned purplish, like veins behind pale skin. The Pennies who had stopped to watch us scurried off abruptly, looking a bit panicky and confused.

"Shit," said Karla.

"Okay people. This is it!" said Olivier. "Raise the column! They're onto us."