Beneath Ceaseless Skies #64 Read online

  “I feel more alive this instant than ever before.” Laughter bubbled from Pixie’s lips. “You plod along, earthbound.” She twirled on her toes. “I bet you wish you could fly.” Her outstretched hands left trails of glittering afterimages.

  A rock the size of my head hurtled past me, bounced over the road, and splashed in the river. More rocks followed. I dodged, clumsy as a hippopotamus.

  Pixie danced and spun. Shapes scurried across the top of the cliffs above us.

  I pulled my revolver and squeezed off four quick shots. A gnome sagged forward and slid down the scree. Blood shone on the gravel. The barrage of rocks stopped. The sharp smell of gunpowder tickled my nose even through the filter.

  “Let’s move.” I grabbed Pixie’s hand. The river rushed by below us. Sunlight danced on waves. We ran.

  A thumping, pulsating sound seemed to burrow into my brain. We turned a bend, and I stopped in awe. A scaffolding of pipes surrounded a boiler the size of a large house. Steam hissed from fittings. Gnomes rushed backwards and forward like panicked ants. Lumps of coal were scattered across the dirt. A hungry fire roared in the structure’s center.

  Sparks geysered from a tower that speared the clouds. The detector made an agonized squeal and expired with a puff of rubbery smoke. Pixie laughed. She threw her head back, eyes closed, arms wide open.

  I unlimbered my pack and tore open the wrapped packages of dynamite. No blasting caps. I dumped the pack on the ground and searched through the contents. “Pixie?”

  “Isn’t this grand?” She sucked deep lungfulls of air into her body. Her face glowed with inner fire. “Why would you want to destroy this?”

  “Where are the caps?” The grip of the revolver felt ice cold in my hand.

  Pixie dropped her arms. “You can’t bring the Before times back.”

  “Was that why you came along?” My heart turned to lead. “Why not just kill me?”

  “I could have killed you anytime I wanted.” Tears welled up in Pixie’s eyes. “Pushed you into the river. Slit your throat.” Her lips twitched. “I like you.”

  I knew I could pull the gun. That she wouldn’t move. My muscles tensed.

  Water sprayed my neck. I whirled around. Ten tons of angry killer whale humped up the rocky sand towards me. “She’s mine.” An ugly black hole on his side wept bloody pus.

  I drew and aimed, but I wasn’t fast enough. A flipper caught my shoulder and sent me flying. The revolver skittered away. My mask tore. I inhaled a lungful of liquid fire.

  My body twisted in agony. Muscles bunched, tightened, and reformed. My back felt flayed, split open. Pixie threw herself between me and the orca. “Back off.”

  He hunched forward. “But darling....” His mouth gaped wide. “I love you.”

  Pixie darted towards him. Her finger flicked his head. “Get the fuck away from me.” A bright line of blood slashed across his snout. “I don’t want you.”

  He reared higher. “Too bad.” His mottled black-and-white body loomed over Pixie.

  I pushed myself to my hands and knees. White feathers filled my peripheral vision. I flapped. Flapped! Wings. Enormous, impossible wings. Energy thrummed through me with every breath. I felt strong. Invincible. I bounced to my feet.

  The orca launched himself like a runaway locomotive at Pixie. A gnome threw a lump of coal that caught the back of her left knee. She slipped off balance and fell to the ground. Time slowed. The orca’s gigantic bulk seemed poised to crush her into the dirt.

  I leaped forward without thinking. My body slammed into slick wet flesh. The orca pushed against me. I thrust back. Brute force against brute force. My new muscles strained, holding his full weight. My knees bent. Straightened. I lifted. Sparkles filled my vision. I felt exhilarated.

  “No.” I threw the orca away from Pixie. He twisted in the air before smashing into the pipes. A terrible grinding assaulted my ears. Jets of super-heated steam cut into his flesh. He screamed.

  More pipes broke. Flames shot skyward. Gnomes clutched their heads and ran in circles. I scooped Pixie into my arms, beat my wings, and leaped skyward. The chimney faltered, swaying back and forth. Sparks made crazy loops in the clouds.

  “You were right.” I hugged Pixie close. My wings swept through the air. “We can do anything.”

  Far below us, the boiler burst open. More pipes collapsed. The sparks sputtered and stopped. “Put me down.” Pixie pushed her body away.

  “What? Don’t you like flying?” I swooped lower.

  “The machine’s wrecked.” Pixie stretched for the ground. “You got what you wanted.”

  She was right. Without the particles, we’d change back. My wings would shrivel and vanish. The new-found strength would wane. In a few days, maybe a week, I’d be my old self. I set Pixie on a bluff looking over the river. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

  Sunlight poured through clouds. Pixie squeezed my hands. “We’ll just have to find out.” She turned and stepped down. Cold wind blew against my face. She paused. “You still owe me a story.”

  Copyright © 2011 Garth Upshaw

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  Garth Upshaw lives in Portland, Oregon with his super-genius wife and three precocious children. When he’s not breeding tarantulas, he rides his bike through the sleeting downpours. His stories have appeared twice previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, including “Two by Zero” in BCS #51, and his other stories have appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and other magazines.

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  MR MORROW BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH THE DELICATE ART OF SQUID KEEPING

  by Geoffrey Maloney

  1.

  The Invitation

  Mr Victor Morrow receives an invitation to a soiree—He wrestles with a social dilemma—and reveals a thwarted desire to be El Coco at the Danse Macabre.

  Victor Morrow, senior civil servant and regular man-about-town, received Madame Florabette Brackensfield’s letter in his morning mail. Inside the cream envelope was a pretty lilac card, printed with gold lettering, inviting him to a soiree on the seventeenth of the month, for an evening of “scientific experimentation and enlightenment”. If what he had heard were true, this would be one of Madame Brackensfield’s most extraordinary and recondite “squidder” parties.

  But, alas, the seventeenth was the night of the full moon, and he had planned to attend the Danse Macabre at Toowong Cemetery. He had already arranged for the preparation of his costume, that of El Coco—the Colombian bogeyman who frightened children with his scary coconut head. It was an original choice, he believed; surely, the ladies would not be able to resist the charms of the legendary El Coco.

  But yet, to decline Madame Brackensfield’s invitation was to risk irreparable damage to his reputation. After all, her late husband, known to all as the Admiral, was one of the heroes of the Kraken Wars. Morrow decided there was nothing for it but to accept.

  2.

  The Baffling Baffalator

  Mr Morrow investigates Madame Brackensfield’s drawing room—Professor Andrew Jefferys introduces his pipe and attempts some bafflement—and the Major introduces Miss Twickenham and her delightfully pointy nose.

  Madame Brackensfield’s was one of those wonderful old wooden mansions on the north bank of the river—two storeys tall, with marvellous cooling verandahs all around, and fans and vents built into the roof to ease the high heat of the Brisbane summer.

  The place seemed to positively hum, as Morrow climbed the garden path leading from Madame’s private wharf. The jacarandas had begun their fall, and Morrow found his dainty Italian boots squelching through a thick carpet of lilac blossoms. Further up the hill, from the tops of the tall gum trees he could hear the koalas calling to each other in their guttural voices. It was, he thought sadly, an absolutely splendid night for the Danse Macabre.

  At the door, Madame’s maid, a dark-skinned native of Pago Pago, where the final battle against the Kraken had been fought, t
ook his hat and coat and showed him into the drawing room. Madame, she advised, would be down shortly. Morrow, assuming he was the first guest to arrive, idled away his time inspecting the room’s elegant features—a little peccadillo of his. A drawing room, which after all was the most public room in a house, revealed much about how a host or hostess wished to present his or herself to the world.

  Madame Brackensfield’s drawing room was splendid; there was nothing in it which was not both practical and beautiful. Many of her chairs and sofas were decorated in marvellous floral patterns, and the sideboards, occasional table, etcetera, were constructed of highly polished native woods, richly carved with images of sea serpents and other exotic animals from some fabulous bestiary. The one exception to the uniform balance was a collection of odd-looking scientific instruments prominently displayed upon the mantelpiece.

  Morrow was studying one of these, a long tube positioned on a geared and levered tripod above a perfectly cut crystal mirror, when he heard a voice behind him: “Kraken artefacts. That one is the Baffalator. Perhaps you would care to hazard a guess as to its purpose.”

  That was an instruction, not a question, Morrow thought, turning to find Professor Andrew Jefferys, a prominent biologist at the University of Brisbane. He was a tall gaunt fellow, with a deeply tanned complexion that showed he had spent much of his academic career in the field. He wore a pair of pince-nez clamped upon his nose in limpet-like fashion and a long thick beard that would have done a bushranger proud. Morrow had met him on several occasions when he had undertaken an environmental impact study on the city swamplands for the government.

  They shook hands in the overly friendly manner that business acquaintances do.

  “The Baffalator, eh? A curious name,” Morrow said, studying the device now with a show of greater interest. He had once seen the stuffed body of a Kraken in the Natural History Museum, and it had profoundly disgusted him—the lifeless creature had looked as threatening and evil as he imagined it had in real life. It was like a cross between a pig and human, so much so the newspapers had nicknamed the Kraken the “Pigmen” during the war. “It appears to be a microscope of some sort, or possibly a small telescope, although the lens is in the oddest position and there is nowhere to mount a slide.”

  “Quite so,” Professor Jefferys said, pulling his pipe and tobacco pouch from the pocket of his baggy linen jacket. “And not a scientist in the land has been able to discover what use it was ever put to by the Kraken. Its sole purpose appears to be no more than to baffle us humans. Hence its name.”

  Just then Major Pankhurst entered the room from the verandah. With him were his wife, Lady Amberly, and a young woman whose handsome face was familiar, but for the moment Morrow could not put a name to it.

  “Victor, how nice to see you,” the Major said, ever his affable self. “Jefferys is baffling you with the Baffalator, is he?”

  The Major—retired—had served with Madame’s husband. He was said to have been “the military mind” behind the destruction of the Kraken’s base on the dark side of the moon. Morrow doubted the veracity of that particular rumour. The Major was one of his father’s golfing foursome, and Morrow regarded him as an amiable old duffer with a huge amount of luck on his side. He had bumbled his way through his military career and had now bumbled his way into a successful second marriage. Lady Amberly was a lady of rank in the Old Country who, after the death of her first husband had come out to the Antipodes to make a new life, met the Major, and fallen in love.

  Morrow shook the Major’s hand robustly, as he was expected to, then bowed to Lady Amberly as he took her hand and raised it to his lips. She may have been in her late fifties, but Morrow was pleased to find she giggled like a schoolgirl as he did so.

  “And you know Miss Twickenham, of course,” the Major said.

  Of course. Morrow now realised where he’d seen her before. Lucy Twickenham, an up-and-coming Shakespearian actress who trod the boards at La Boite. Last summer she had played Portia in The Merchant of Venice. Her interpretation had been a little on the light side for his tastes but professional nonetheless. “Of course,” Morrow said, bowing. “‘The quality of mercy is not strained. It dropeth as a gentle rain from heaven.’ Your performance was most delightful, Miss Twickenham. Victor Morrow, at your service.”

  Miss Twickenham blushed in a deliberate and fashionable manner. “So you’re a theatre-goer, then, Mr Morrow?”

  “Infrequently, I’m afraid. My work often keeps me too busy for so many of life’s pleasures.” He smiled warmly as he studied her features. There was something about her pointy nose he found altogether delightful.

  “Still flogging off that swampland for the government, are you?” Professor Jefferys asked. “Haven’t you made your fortune yet?”

  “If it’s a fortune I’m making, then as a humble servant of the public, it’s most certainly a fortune for the government.” Morrow smiled once more at Miss Twickenham. He was just about to think up something incredibly witty to say—he’d learnt that wit impresses a young lady no end—when Professor Jefferys grabbed his elbow.

  “Allow me to show you the tanks, dear fellow.”

  “The tanks?”

  “Where Madame keeps her squid.” Professor Jefferys winked at the others and steered Morrow towards the French doors that led onto the verandah. Morrow smiled his most polite smile, although the professor’s grip on his elbow was just a little too strong.

  3.

  A Damn Fine Pipe

  Mr Morrow makes the acquaintance of the squid—Professor Jefferys fails to provide enlightenment—Mr Morrow discovers the professor has a splendid tobacconist.

  On the verandah, Morrow found there were two tanks, six feet long by three high, with galvanised metal frames. The night air had grown increasingly humid, and it now carried the smell of burning coal from the new electricity works further up river.

  Morrow walked to the nearest tank, crouched down, and peered through the glass. At first he thought it was empty, apart from the ridge of jagged grey rocks that ran through the middle. But then, as he studied the white sands that lay across the bottom, he detected three sets of dark and shiny eyes watching him closely. He could only just discern the outlines of their bodies, which blended almost perfectly with the cream-coloured sand.

  Morrow tapped his knuckle against the glass. One of the squid shot up from the sand in a burst of bubbles, its body changing from cream to mauve to deep royal purple as it did so. It was perhaps no more than four inches long, and Morrow was mesmerised by the way its body changed colour so rapidly. Here was a living creature with its very own fireworks display. Now its body flashed a pleasant green, and it seemed to be just as curious about Morrow as he was of it. There was, most certainly, he decided, a certain arrogance and nobility about its manner.

  He turned back to the professor. “Such remarkable creatures. The way their colours change is extraordinary.”

  The professor had finally put his pipe in his mouth and was puffing merrily upon it, exhaling streams of bluish smoke through his nostrils. Morrow sniffed, drawing the fragrance in. It was rather sweet, reminiscent of cinnamon.

  “Admiral Brackensfield brought them back after the war,” Professor Jefferys said. “They were found aboard the Kraken submersibles in rather odd globular flasks. We surmise they kept them either as pets or as a food source, or....” The professor hesitated, puffing furiously upon his pipe.

  “Or?” Morrow prompted.

  “The Kraken may have kept them for ritual purposes, at one stage, but that evolved over time....”

  “Ritual, as in religion?” Morrow had had more than his share of the new spiritualism that was sweeping the country, and the charlatans that accompanied it. Of course, he was never critical of those practices in public; too many prominent people were believers in such things, but he wondered what he was in for tonight.

  “Merely a supposition on my part,” the professor said. “I believe, however, that as the Kraken developed their civi
lization, the ritual purpose evolved into a scientific one. That is what we shall be investigating this evening.”

  For Morrow this was hardly an illuminating explanation, but before he could ask a more pointed question, the professor continued.

  “Most certainly they are remarkable creatures. But look at them, they’re virtually prisoners in those tanks. I bet they’re just dying to get out, and they will soon enough. Gentleman are required to choose the males; the ladies the females. It’s an experience, most certainly it is.” The professor winked at Morrow and blew more smoke from his nostrils.

  Like the devil himself, Morrow thought, and found a creeping nervousness coming over him. “Out of their tanks?”

  He imagined his voice must have betrayed his emotions, for Professor Jefferys took a bright yellow handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the stem of his pipe. In a show of smoker’s etiquette, he handed it to Morrow. “Here, have a smoke. It’s a relaxing blend, tinctured with laudanum. You will need to be relaxed for what comes next.”

  Morrow took the pipe and sucked upon it greedily. The tobacco was as rich and pleasant as it smelt, and taste of the laudanum was readily detectable. It was a damn fine pipe indeed. He wandered back and forth between the two tanks as he smoked, studying the squid, thinking what delightful creatures they were. The way their tentacles furled out from their mouths like big floppy moustaches.

  “So what does come next?” he asked the professor.

  4.

  The Capture and the Swallowing

  Mr Morrow finds himself somewhat befuddled—Madame Brackensfield descends from her boudoir with a splendid beehive hairdo—The Major demonstrates the fine art of squid catching.

  Morrow could not recall the professor having answered his question. The next thing he remembered was sitting in a wicker chair with a fish net in his hand.