Shadow Sun Seven by Spencer Ellsworth

Author:Spencer Ellsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

-12-

Jaqi

“JAQI!”

“Yeah?” I say back to Kalia, through the comm in my helmet. This is the first time she’s talked to me about anything save religion since Trace.

“This is”—she’s talking in bursts—“the grossest”—big pause—“thing in all space!”

Although there’s atmos pumped into this tunnel—helps the burn—we are talking between helmet radios, given as we’re swimming up through the sea of lung-meat, a sea of pink fleshy flaps.

“Yep. En’t many scabs can boast of what we done. We went right up the bug’s butt, and now we’re swimming through its guts.”

Toq giggles. “We’re in its butt-guts!”

“Evil big butt-guts, that’s right.”

“Ew! Ew!”

Thick pockets of the tissue honeycombed with holes like the tunnels out of an ecosphere; splatters of rotten, cut-out bits cascading down every time we make a hole to climb up. Normally the incinerators would be blasting away, burning these bits as they fall in.

Above us, Taltus’s soulsword burns bright blue as he carves his way through the mess. “We have reached the bottom of some kind of funnel now,” he says. “It is widening, sss, on a slope. I will attempt something.”

Taltus fires a harpoon. A pop, audible even in here, a flash and more bits rain down, cut apart by the shard in the tip of his harpoon, and Taltus hands down a line to Kalia, who hands it down to me. “I think I have gained purchase on something above this incinerator with the harpoon,” Taltus says. “Hang on to the line.”

“Swez, you hear me?” I speak into the radio. Them Kurgul scabs are still back in the ship.

“I hear you, female cross.”

“Oh, I done stepped up from just female, drone? Aiya, scab, you know how to treat a girl! You keep this up, we’ll go all the way to ‘female cross with the hair.’”

“Do not waste my time, female.”

I know I shouldn’t worry at a Mataka, but damn is it fun. “Might have an all-clear in a minute,” I say. “Now hang on till I give the signal. Taltus,” I call out. “Let me come up to you.”

I climb the line past Kalia, pulling Toq up with me, leaving him with his sister as I kick my way through rotten meat-bits, slide my body around a big piece. Looks a bit like a steak.

Bill would laugh. I’m hungry again.

Taltus pulls me close, so our helmets are touching, so my vision is just filled with that bone mask under a visor. I switch off my comm. He does the same.

I speak, letting it vibrate through our helmets.

“Once they get the ship up and out of this mess, them scabs might shoot us. I mean, they’re bound to shoot us eventually, but I can’t say whether they’ll do it now or wait till we’ve finished the job.”

“I will die for you, and the children, if needed.”

“That’s a fine sentiment, but that en’t what we need.” Taltus’s eyes shine from under that mask. The eyes of a believer. Aiya. It’s a good thing he en’t in no position to bow.

“Listen,” he says. “Listen, Jaqi, there are things you must hear me say, without anyone listening.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.