GeneStorm: City in the Sky Read online

  “Say, can you actually ride?”

  The mantis was almost incensed. “Can I ride? What sort of question is that? I am a scientist! A scholar! Nothing is beyond my compass!” The mantis waved towards a gaggle of unbroken cockatoos strutting about below. “I shall demonstrate! Take me to the most unruly beast down there, and I shall bend it to my will!”

  “Ooooh, no more punch for you.” Snapper moved the carafe further along the table. “But you have ridden? It’s just that we’ll be going a long, long way.”

  “Well in fact, I have not. But the theory seems simple enough. And if there are malfunctions – if the beast should lose its focus – I can always jump off.”

  “Hmm.” The shark kept her thoughts on the matter to herself. She leaned over the railing and cocked an eye at one of the beasts in the corral, then called down to a rancher who stood beside the railings.

  “Brent! What the hell is that thing?”

  The rancher – one of the more equine inhabitants of Spark Town – looked up at Snapper and shook his head.

  “Ooh, don’t go near that! It just sort of turned up in the pen. That thing’s wicked. Take a bite out of your arse as soon as look at you.”

  The creature in question was at once one of the most magnificent, and one of the most wicked things that Snapper had ever seen. It was a titanic flightless moth with six powerful fluted legs, an impressive abdomen and a thorax plush with deep fur. The fur itself was a rich burgundy red, edged with white, complementing its velvety flightless wings. Broad feathery antennae sifted carefully at the winds.

  It also had a face better suited to a scheming, sniggering ancient demon.

  The creature was clearly also partly avian. Its long beak, like a magpie or a butcher bird, was serrated and heavy enough to shear through a man’s arm. The creature somehow exuded an air of barely concealed malice, and the ranchers apparently kept it well and truly out of harm’s way.

  Snapper leaned on the garden rail and considered the animal with a scowl.

  “Seems sort of plush and furry…”

  The moth creature lashed out with a tongue almost two metres long, stealing a hot dog right out of the hand of an astonished passer-by. Spectators fled and the rancher backed away from the corral shaking his head.

  “Free to a good home! You want it?”

  “Think I’ll pass…” Snapper gave the man a salute. “I gave up evil for lent!”

  A snappy plant from the arbour made a vague attempt to take a bite out of Snapper’s derriere. She smacked it on the nose – one had to from time to time. She returned to the table in time to overhear two of the local strumpets – Abigail Blunch and Henrietta Cable – loudly discussing Kitterpokkie with their cronies. They were the local beauties, and the entire gaggle decidedly had more boobs than brains. They were gazing covertly at the mantis, whose outlandish pink and white beauty was gaining approving looks from the local ranchers. Abigail whispered into a friend’s ear loudly enough for the words to carry clearly to the bar.

  “She et someone, she did! She bit off her boyfriend’s head!” The girl glowered at Kitterpokkie sidewise. “You should never trust a mantis!”

  Snapper leaned over and thieved beer nuts from between the gossiping girls.

  “You have it wrong way round, dear. She ate the rest of him, and only left the head.” She patted Abigail’s shoulder. “Better send some cupcakes over to the table. You don’t want that girl getting peckish!”

  Beau was laughing loudly, surrounded by admirers, male and female. Even Beth, the town mayor, seemed to be falling under his spell. Beau half rose to buy drinks for his new friends, but they waved him down and purchased the fox-bird a brimming tankard instead. Kitt noticed, and seemed quite pleased for the man.

  “Our comrade from the caravan trail seems to be popular!”

  “Yeah…” Snapper was watchful, keeping an eye on the pub’s main door. “He has a few talents alright…”

  “And incidentally, I did not bite off anybody’s head! I would never do any such thing!” Kitterpokkie waved a hand, her voice now ever so slightly slurred. “I can’t even begin to imagine how that would taste!”

  “That’s good…” Snapper saw a motion at the front door. “Rule one of any town! Do not eat each other. No matter how tasty they might seem…”

  In through the pub’s main door came an immense man – a crocodile through and through, with armoured skin and weighing in at a hundred and thirty kilos of sheer muscle. He was a cocoplod puncher, complete with pistol on his hip and leather gauntlets on his fists. Snapper heaved one almighty sigh.

  “Well, it was a peaceful evening…”

  The crocodile had come in full of dust, fire and sheer hostility. He threw his hat aside, keeping his eyes fixed upon Beau and his little coterie of admirers.

  “Hey!” The crocodile’s voice was a vast, bass boom. “Who the hell has his hands all over my girl?”

  Snapper darted forward, bidding Kitterpokkie stay back out of range. “I’ll fetch him.”

  “It seems dangerous!”

  “Noblesse oblige!” Snapper moved forward and flipped open a side door: Beau had a clear escape route if he would just leap over the bar. “Beau! Move it!”

  The fox-pheasant arose, fur and plumage shimmering. He dismissed Snapper with a confident, genial wave of his fingers. “I shall handle this, dear lady. The merest misunderstanding.” He walked merrily up to the crocodile. “Now…”

  Beau was suddenly punched in the head by a fist the size of a piano stool. He flew back across a table, spilling coloured gaming tiles. The gamers leapt up to shout, the crocodile shoved one man aside, and then another gamer slammed a punch into the croc’s large and muscular gut. A second body flew through the air across the table, and the brawl was on for young and old.

  The gamers tore into the crocodile and his ranch crew. Various girls belaboured one or the other side with invective, beer nuts and seat cushions. A staggering rancher ploughed clean into a billiard table, quite destroying the game. The melee spread until half the tap room was involved.

  Snapper was rather more robust than most. Shouldering through the outer rim of the fight, she made her way behind the bar, leapt up and over, and hauled the semi-conscious Beau out from beneath the fight. She checked his snout, but the man seemed fine: bloodied but alive.

  “Come on old son! Time for some air.”

  “Ah!” Beau gave a vague salute. “No thank you madam. I believe I shall try the pasta.”

  “Here we go!”

  Snapper hauled the man by his taloned feet, dragging him out over fallen tables towards the veranda. A pair of embattled ranchers careened off her. She ducked and pushed forward, only to see the enraged crocodile rampaging toward her. The man saw Beau and rolled up his sleeves, roaring for blood. Snapper held up one hand to keep the man at bay.

  “Nope! This one’s done!”

  The crocodile’s only answer was to launch an immense blow at Snapper’s skull.

  Snapper blocked the punch and slammed two of her own into the croc’s snout. The huge man closed in, raining blows at Snapper, when quite suddenly a bolt of pink lightning came whirring through the air. Wings spread, Kitterpokkie gave a wild barbarian war cry and landed on the man’s back, thrashing at him with two arms and a pair of claws. He whirled about like a bucking bronco, trying to throw the girl off. She finally lost her grip and was hurtled aside, landing on the bar and sliding along the entire polished length in a shower of beer nuts. The croc turned, roaring, reaching out to try and snatch Snapper by the throat.

  The shark was moving far too fast. Snapper spun, slamming the powerful length of her tail against the man’s legs. The croc toppled, crashing through a table. The dazed rancher crashed down on the floor and was instantly covered by debris. Throckmorton – cruising curiously high above the fight – showered the man with nut shells for good measure, then fetched a bottle of whiskey from the bar. He headed back out into the beer garden, his little faces watching the battle a
s it raged this way and that.

  Snapper dragged Beau one-handed out to the veranda, left him in Toby’s care, and went back into the melee to fetch Kitterpokkie.

  “One more! I’ll be back!”

  Abigail had decided to screech and shout at Kitterpokkie, and tried to fling beer into the mantis’s face. Kitt dodged, and triumphantly slammed Abigail’s face into a half-melted plate of ice cream. Snapper picked the mantis up underneath one arm and carried her off backwards towards the beer garden.

  “Come on you. Expeditious retreat!”

  She transported Kitt out into the beer garden just as the sheriff and his men arrived.

  Sheriff Guntry was a patent man – part tortoise and part god knows what. In a settlement the size of Spark Town, his duties largely consisted of dealing with drunken range hands and caravaneers. The man trundled into the room, nodded his head to intercept an incoming fist against his bone encrusted pate, and grabbed the howling rancher as the man staggered back clutching his injured hand. The sheriff saw Snapper hauling brawlers out of the melee, and yelled a hello to her through the chaos.

  “Hussar! You’re back!” He tipped Snapper a salute. “Heard you carved up a bunch of Screamers?”

  “Real Screamers!” Snapper planted Kitterpokkie into a chair and handed her a drink. “Exciting times!”

  “Yes indeed!”

  The Dancing Dugite had tried and true tactics for the inevitable barroom brawls. The barman set off a sulphur bomb and tossed it into the middle of the brawlers, making people stagger coughing and choking out into the street. Four of the militia’s nightly guard squad came running into the fray, seizing the most troublesome brawlers as they ran out of the smoke cloud. The crocodile - a regular in the drunk tank – was carried off by four full grown men. The sheriff and his assistants carried their guests off to the tiny town jail to sleep off their woes.

  No one particularly seemed to mind the brawl. Ten minutes later, the smoke had cleared, floor swept and the furniture had been set back in place. Kitterpokkie’s wounds were treated by having her swill down four fingers of cactus whiskey. A similar dose was poured into the dazed Beau. They set him up on a chair with ice for his jaw and a drink at his elbow, and went back to their evening.

  Snapper drank with him, then ordered more drinks all around. Uncle Toby soon sat on the far end of the bar, describing Snapper’s battle with the Screamers – making much of flashing blades and ‘hussaren shouts’. The domino game came back in force and there was a great deal of singing and guitar playing. Kitterpokkie offered to ride the hellish moth out in the corral – then took a closer look at the thing and had second thoughts…

  Thus passed the evening at the Dancing Dugite…

  Many happy hours later, Toby, Samuels, Snapper and Kitterpokkie made their way carefully back home – laughing genially and moving with exaggerated care. Throckmorton’s leaf wings thrashed about at random as he was towed firmly along behind Samuels with the aid of a length of hairy string. The group headed along the soft brown dust of the little town’s streets, then down through the arch and back into the wonderfully eccentric house that Snapper called home.

  Beau found a couch in the living room and collapsed across the cushions. Samuels threw a blanket over him, put a bucket beside him just in case, and left him to his own devices. Throckmorton was tethered to the kitchen bench, where he floated about apparently fast asleep.

  Uncle Toby made desultory moves towards the tea kettle, but never quite made it that far. He ended up in a chair and fell fast asleep. Samuels tucked him in, hung up his own coat, then headed off to bed.

  “Goodnight ladies! Kitterpokkie – it has been an adventure!” Samuels bowed. “Snapper – I look forward to your next return from the wilds.”

  Snapper pointed Kitterpokkie towards a room at the back of the house. It was Snapper’s private kingdom, hung with drawings of cavaliers, knights and cuirassiers, and with weird treasures found in the ruins carefully arranged on shelves. There were four old honest-to-god printed books from ancient times, and a painted toy soldier – inevitably an hussar. The shark slung her pelisse onto a coat stand. She then made her friend a bed on a huge old couch. They both sat down, removing boots and heaving dazed sighs.

  Snapper passed over a tall glass of water, drank one herself, and then sank back into bed. “Okay, so that was the Dugite.”

  “That it was.” Kitterpokkie ached. She was utterly exhausted, but oddly light of heart. “And tomorrow morning, I will price lead sheet, and organise a grub stake!”

  “Yeah.” Sapper worked her chops. “Or maybe tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Yes. Possibly a better plan.”

  They both flopped into their respective beds. Overhead above the roof, the windmill could be heard gently turning. Little creatures rustled in the vines outside. A sentry on the town walls called out that all was well.

  Peace and quiet. Peace and quiet indeed.

  Kitterpokkie lay back and laced all four arms behind her head. She looked quietly up at the dark wood beams of the ceiling.

  “I have never done any of those things before.” The mantis felt quite amazed. “Not fighting, not singing, not dancing, not…”

  “Not drinking.”

  “Not drinking.” Kitt felt the bed whirl beneath her. “I don’t think we’ll make a big habit out of the drinking.”

  “No. Quite agreed.”

  It was decidedly time for sleep. Snapper heaved herself dazedly up and switched off the light. “Goodnight Kitt.”

  “Goodnight Snapper…”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then the mantis nestled into her blankets. She was curiously at peace with her world.

  “… and thank you.”

  The next day was… decidedly slow.

  Kitterpokkie awoke in fits and starts – and was horribly distressed to discover that she was still somewhat drunk. She crept out of bed, moving as though she were carrying a jellyfish atop her head, and teetered slowly through the house. It seemed to be midday. Samuels was somewhere in the garden under a tree, teaching a group of children their basic letters and numbers. The children chanted their A-B-C’s. It was a nightmarish background to the spinning of Kitterpokkie’s head. The mantis felt her way out into the kitchen, somehow found her way onto the porch. She sheered away from Samuels’ class of avid child savants, and headed to the far side of the yard, where Onan was crunching merrily upon a calcium bell. The noise was like an infinity of fingernails dragged across blackboards. The bird squawked a deafening screech of welcome, wildly flapping his wings. Kitterpokkie made a croak of dismay and sought shelter in a dark corner of the porch.

  Throckmorton was hanging in mid air with his leaf-wings at a decidedly listless angle. His roots were dangling into a budgie trough, drinking like a being possessed. His heads looked decidedly the worse for wear. The plant waved a tentacle to Kitterpokkie as he worked his many chops.

  “I feel like I have been very badly pruned…”

  They both settled on an old couch. Out in the yard, wren-mice bounced and chirped from the branches of the huge old stripy shade tree. Kitterpokkie and Throckmorton sat and sighed, both making an executive decision to quietly rest their eyes.

  They were destined to have no peace.

  Talking loudly and merrily, Snapper and Beau came in under the leafy arch. They each had a small package under an arm, and were talking together in easy amity. On seeing Kitterpokkie and Throckmorton, they both waved and called out. Snapper ran up the veranda steps two at a time.

  “Up at last! Excellent!” She held out a hand and hauled Kitterpokkie to her feet. “Come on – the perfect cure for all your ills. Meat – and a swim!”

  The package under her arm apparently contained raw sausages. The scent was not exactly what Kitterpokkie wanted to smell at this particular moment, but Snapper put an arm about her and managed to steer her slowly along the porch. “Come on. Cool water, shade, sausages! Magic stuff.”

  “They do seem to be excellent s
ausages.” Beau was a little the worse for wear – his long tail feathers dragged. “I confess, sitting beside a river seems an excellent plan.”

  “Throcky!” Snapper towed the plant along by one tentacle. “Come on. We have ‘Old Mama Cantaloupe’s Sure-Gro with extra nitrogen’ – a sure cure for all plantly ills. Aaand…” She wagged a second bag. “Jelly babies, made by the one and only candy store currently known to civilisation.”

  There was no denying her. Snapper marshalled the others like a procession of the walking dead, and took them out of the yard and off through the lane and into the great, broad main streets of spark town. Riders spurred past on budgerigars, including the crocodile from the night before, who looked hung over and definitely shabby. Snapper took great delight in leading Kitterpokkie past the workshops where metal was being smelted and poured – and inevitably hammered. The shark had to shout to be heard above the noise.

  “So I asked about lead foil – really thin sheet? They think it can be done. They’ll put regular gutter sheeting through hot rollers and kinda roll it out like dough. But even at about one or two mil thickness? Those suits will be heavy - particularly for the birds. And we’re going to have to find a way to finance it all.”

  “Ah.” Kitterpokkie swayed. The noise of the nearby blacksmith’s anvil was like the apocalypse warned over. “Snapper, my friend, that is… good news.”

  “These are the guys who can do it! They’re smelting brass today – that’s thanks to us! The town was down to it’s last half metre of sheet!” The shark watched the forge workers with a great satisfied grin. “These guys do great recycling!” She pointed to where lengths of steel cable was being heated in a forge. “They make the best swords here. Folger there did mine. Hammered out of cable. That’s why it has all the cool patterns in the blade.” The shark was delighted by the sparks showering from the hammer and anvil. “We have to get you a blade before we go. What would you like?”

  “A suicide knife?” The mantis had one hand against her skull. Her head reverberated to the beat of the blacksmith’s hammer. “Oh, this is not good.”