Penult (50 page)

I fled these annoying dreams and
escaped into the Singularity, surprising myself with the ease of my
entry into its flow. I let the stream carry me wherever it wanted
to take me. I was done with forcing it to hunt for Karla. But
having no aim meant drifting aimlessly, flitting between heads with
no discernible pattern.

These souls I traversed, I could feel
their longings and anxieties, but they remained strangers to me,
their souls only briefly engaged and released. Hundreds of souls
later, the Singularity finally found me a familiar face, and it was
a notable one.

Wendell.

He was in London, standing outside a
hotel, waiting for a valet to bring him his rental car. He
instantly sensed my presence. He chuckled and winked into the
void.

“
Hay, hey! No worries kid.
Pay no mind to that Zhang. You’re doing just great. You stay put,
right where you are. The cavalry is on its way.”

And as quick as that I flitting back
out of London. My mind might have been over her, but my heart still
pined for Karla and the Singularity strived to serve me. But I
drifted nowhere, circling, doubling back, before stalling. I don’t
know whether the Singularity had abandoned me or had no clue where
to send me. Maybe she was nowhere to be found. What that suggested
about the status and disposition of her soul disturbed
me.

I tried to hang out longer and find
out more but I had no more control of my direction than a minnow in
flash flood. Uncertainty converged with fear and frustration.
Despair sank its fangs deep. The roots came up and took
me.

Chapter 54:
Volunteers

For once, the roots dumped me in a
comfortable landing spot—smack-dab on my sleeping mat deep in the
warren. I was not alone. Ubaldo stood over me, goggle-eyed and
gawking.

“
He returns!”

Olivier burst in from my little
walled-in patio. His eyes too were wide and excited.

“
Sheesh! You picked a fine
time to fade, kid. But maybe that’s a good thing. Now that you’re
back, maybe it means you’ll stick around long enough for us to
finish. Yo, Baldo. Go tell the others we got the kid
back.”

The young Duster flew out the door and
into the warren.

“
Finish … what?” I said, my
head still foggy.

“
What do you mean ‘what’?
You were there. You heard. We got the go ahead. We’re getting ready
to raid Penult.”

“
Oh, right.”

“
Come on, we gotta get our
asses moving. Cherubs hit the upper rim last night and it looks
like they’re regrouping for another go. They’re throwing everything
they got at us. At this rate, I’d be shocked if New Axum holds out
another week. We’re lucky they’re out of columns. At least, I hope
so. I suppose if they had any, they wouldn’t be shy about using
them.”

For some reason I was having a harder
time than usual clearing the cobwebs from my brain. It didn’t help
that I didn’t want to be here. I just wanted the Liminality to go
away and leave me alone. I stared up at Olivier, unable to
budge.

“
The rest of the assault
party’s up on the plaza getting their shit together. We got eleven
volunteers plus you, me, Yaqob and Baldo. Bugs for everyone, all
saddled and provisioned. Three pairs of Seraph wings. Three cracker
columns. And … uh … there’s something else up there … you gotta
see.”

“
Three columns?”

“
You heard me. We’re taking
three. And as far as everyone else knows, they all work. Got
it?”

“
Okay. But I only made one
replica. Where did the third come from?”

He sighed. “I whipped one up while you
were away. Pretty feeble. Not as pretty as yours, but we’ve got
them all shrouded up so no one’s the wiser. I got a feeling your
copy isn’t all that far off from being made functional. It just
needs a little more inspiration and perspiration.”

“
I’m not so sure about
that. Hey, does anybody know for sure where we’re going
exactly?”

“
Of course. What, you think
we would go in blind? This isn’t a suicide mission. We’ll be doing
this in two jumps. First we head to the shore where we rest the
bugs, get them fed. We’ll be setting down pretty close to where the
Cherubs land their boats so it could get a little dicey. But it’s
the shortest route across the strait.”

“
Penult’s … an
island?”

“
You betcha. Yaqob sent
scouts back in the early days when they first invaded and we didn’t
know where the fuck these bastards came from. But it’s been awhile
since we sent anyone back that way. I suspect the island hasn’t
moved, but it’ll be good to have an update, see what we’re getting
ourselves into. If all goes well, we should hear back from Urszula
sometime tomorrow. It’s a half day flight, there and back. We’ll
rendezvous on the shore.”

I hauled myself off my slab of a bed,
my stomach full of butterflies.

“
Urszula went ahead … on
her own?”

“
Nah. She’s got Kitt and
Tyler with her. No worries. Everyone’s got a bug. The Pennies don’t
have anything that can keep up with a dragonfly.”

I fished my jeans from a tangle of
blankets and pulled them on. It was nice not to have to weave a new
set from scratch, although these didn’t smell too fresh. I pulled
on my hoodie, zipped it and grabbed my blackened sword.

I resolved to go through the motions
and do whatever Olivier wanted of me. What else could I do? I
couldn’t just sit here and wait for the Cherubim come swarming
through the warren.

***

The plaza was arrayed with the
strangest assortment of insects. Tigger was there, of course, along
with three other dragonflies fresh from the bogs from the looks of
their unblemished wings and cuticles. Yaqob and his aides were busy
equipping a strange, two-winged creature with a long snout and a
nasty-looking barbed tail. It almost looked like a winged
scorpion.

The shortage of dragonflies had
apparently forced the Dusters to press other insects into duty.
Ubaldo sat astride a lanky and menacing white-faced hornet. A pair
of scarabs lapped at some brown slurry in a trough.

I didn’t see any mantids around. It
made sense. Though they excelled in battle, they were not at all
suited for long distance flights. They were probably all down
defending the rim.

Reznak and Hailay came over with some
Old Ones to huddle with Yaqob. The Frelsian brass strolled
separately through the formation, reviewing the preparations.
Victoria was looking a little more spry and alert and that worried
me. She wore a sly smile that made her look like a cat about to
kill a sparrow.

Olivier I passed among the volunteers,
who were milling about, strapping weapons to saddles, adjusting
their armor. One stood apart from the rest, lacing up a pair of
boots. I stopped in my tracks, not believing what I was seeing. My
stomach dropped. My head swam. I wobbled.

“
Karla?”

She looked up at me, her face all wary
and stiff as if she were not particularly pleased to see me. The
sheer coldness in her eyes stung me. She never looked more like her
father. The essence of Edmund Raeth stared back at me, all smug and
righteous and dismissive.

“
What are
you
doing here?” I said,
my voice quavering.

“
Doing my part,” she said,
calmly. “You did yours. So now I do mine.”

“
You’re going on the raid
with us?”

“
Obviously.”

I turned and looked at Olivier. “You
knew she was here? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
She showed up … after you
faded. I figured you needed to see for yourself.”

Karla stepped closer like she expected
me to hug her. I kept my arms to myself and stepped back, which
induced her to smirk.

“
You have every right to be
angry with me. I understand. But I told you, we were desperate. But
you dismissed me. It was looking like you might never return here
on your own. I needed to find some way to get you here. We need
you.”

Normally, I would have held back,
self-conscious of all these faces watching us, but I just tuned
them out. It was like the whole plaza was empty but for me and
Karla.

“
We? What about you? Do you
need me?”

“
Of course. Why would you
even ask?”

“
This place was never our
problem, Karla. We didn’t ever have to come back here again. We had
lives to live.”

“
You
… had a life. I had nothing.”

“
You had me. We had a whole
life in front of us, there for the taking, but you rejected it …
for no good reason. You rejected life … with me. You rejected
me.”

“
This has nothing to do
with you. It is only
my
life I do not want. If you want to live, then live.” She gave
this little shimmy of a shrug and bit her lip. But then her face
shifted and this sad look came over her. “Please. Do not hate
me.”

“
I don’t hate you. I could
never hate you. I’m just … disgusted.”

“
Disgusted? How?” She
scrunched her face. “Listen. I know you did not want to come back
here. I know … I forced you … to become miserable like me. But I
had no choice. The Liminality … is our future. Life … yes, there
are nice moments … but they are gone in a flash. This afterlife is
our future. It is forever. We have to preserve our future,
no?

I just stood there shaking my head
slowly. “I’m sorry … but life … real life … is way better than this
place will ever be. That world we were all born into is … special.
Why not enjoy it? Give it a chance. The afterlife can
wait.”

“
You don’t understand,” she
said. “I’m talking about preserving our immortality. I’m talking
eternity here. You are talking about … eighty years maybe … if we
are lucky.”

“
Eighty years? That’s a
long time, Karla. You’d didn’t even give us a year. We didn’t even
have a month together, for Chrissakes. What the fuck? You ditch me
for this place? This ain’t life. It’s not even close.”

“
No, not yet. But we can
make it special,” said Karla. “This can be made … a very nice
existence. But not … with Penult … here. And … I think you know
this … there is no guarantee we control our destiny, that we end up
here when we die unless we arrange to become Freesouls. If we leave
it to chance, let the afterworlds choose where we go, we can end up
in other places. Horrible places. More horrible than the Deeps. But
here, we can cheat the universe. Make a nice place for ourselves.
Forever. But not with Penult doing what they do. They need to be
defeated.”

“
And if we fail? What then?
Would you go back? To the living world?”

She ground her teeth. “I am already
still there, unfortunately. But I do not think I can stay for much
longer, no matter what happens here. I need to find my sister. To
whatever realm has taken her. I will go. Maybe you can help? Maybe
this Singularity can find her, like it found me?”

“
You would go … like … even
to the Deeps? Seriously? You would go back to the
Deeps?”

She bobbed her head. “If she is there.
You don’t understand. But how can you? You were an only child. But
she is my sister. My baby sister.”

My mouth dropped. I liked Isobel and I
felt bad for whatever happened to her, but how did I fit into
Karla’s view of existence? Did I even matter to her?

“
Well, now. I see your
priorities. And they don’t involve me.”

“
That is not
true.”

I started quaking like I had a fever.
Stuff was loosening in the chest and threatening to break free. I
thought I was going to explode and spatter my guts all over the
plaza, all over all the faces watching this whole awkward
encounter. I turned to Olivier “She can’t come with us. I can’t
handle it.”

“
She
volunteered.”

“
I don’t care. I don’t want
her coming along.”

“
James. We need every
volunteer we can get,” said Olivier. “I was hoping for fifty. We
only got fifteen, not counting the scouts.”

“
Fuck it, then. I won’t go.
It’s either her or me. You decide.”

I stood there, gazing off down the
wide, steep avenue that led down to the rim. A flight of falcons
dodging plasma blasts pursued a mantid rider along the cliff top.
Something large flew up at the mantid and missed, slamming into a
partially restored building. Its wall collapsed and crumbled. A
band of armored Frelsian troops rushed across the junction and down
the promenade to meet yet another threat. New Axum was not going to
hold much longer.

Olivier leaned over, his voice hushed.
“James. It’s cool. I’ll make sure you don’t have to work with her.
Just let her come along. Please.”

“
Fine,” I said, sighing.
“But keep her out of my face.”

Chapter 55: The
Shore

I slunk away across the plaza, seeking
a quiet place to be alone, buy some time to get my head together. I
was tearing up and I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, especially
not Karla.