An air siren was wailing—the one they only used in the rainy season to announce a problematic amount of waves or water. Palamedes looked at Pyrrha and said crisply— “It’s not…？”
“It must have retracted a while ago,” said Pyrrha. “We never could’ve got out of here in the shuttle, no way, no how. The first wave is here.”
We Suffer said—
“No planet-killer has attacked a planet like this in my lifetime, or in the lifetimes of any of my superiors.”
“Number Seven—Varun the Eater—always was lively,” said Pyrrha. “But after killing my necromancer, I’d assumed the damn thing would go dormant for a good century. That’s how it was after it ripped apart Cassiopeia.”
“Is it after the Lyctor?” We Suffer said urgently. “If we neutralised that body, then…？”
Palamedes held out his hands helplessly. “If it were responding to the soul of Ianthe Naberius, wouldn’t it have responded days ago? From what I gather, it doesn’t take a Resurrection Beast that long to spin up—the slow part is getting in position, and it’s been in position for months.”
“It doesn’t matter why. There’s Heralds out there,” said Pyrrha impatiently. “If Number Seven’s blown, it’s blown. We’d need a Lyctor to lead it away—a fully instantiated, experienced, serious Lyctor, who’d need a start point halfway across the galaxy, preferably with two other Lyctors to engage it in the River … and if we had all that, we’d hope to God it rerouted the Heralds the moment it found better prey. You want Cyrus, Augustine, Cassiopeia … You want Gideon the First, and Gideon the First is dead. He’s not coming back. Oh, God, Gideon,” said Pyrrha, suddenly. “Gideon … G—， you died for nothing.”
Suddenly the Captain started violently trembling. Crown immediately moved to hold the Captain’s hands away from her face—said, in low tones, “Come on. Come on, Deuteros. I’m here. Fight this, goddamn you. Stay awake and fight,” and the Captain made a noise like ah, ah, ah.
Nona made her body stand on its two feet. Two feet—the worst number for feet; not so many that they were ever useful, not so few that you didn’t have to think about them. She walked to the end of the truck and stood where the wheels burred beneath her, and she pushed Pyrrha aside—Pyrrha fell back flat on her back on the bottom of the truck, and she was sorry immediately, but she didn’t have time—and she stood in front of Crown, and she held out her hand.
“Sword,” she said.
Crown said, falteringly, “Nona…？”
She took too long. Nona took her sword. She had to use her hands to bend Crown back, enough to get at the scabbard. It wouldn’t pull free—it was at the wrong angle—so she cut it out of its scabbard. The blade parted the scabbard and came out. It was very heavy on her wrist, and dragged a little on the truck floor with a bright, awful screeching.
There was a gun trained on her. Pash had jumped to her feet. We Suffer was saying, “Passion, do not shoot—” and Palamedes was saying, in the other body, “Nona, stop. Nona, talk to me,” and it was too much. Nona had to get out.
She pushed the flap aside—the truck behind them honked again—and she found the side of the truck with her hand. It was too hard to climb with the sword in her other hand—she needed two—so she sheathed it in her hip, making sure it wedged in firmly. Some of the shirt went with it, but it came out the other side. Nona was glad it was someone else’s shirt instead of her Salt Chip Fish Shop shirt. She wasn’t able to think on her love for her Salt Chip Fish Shop shirt—she had clambered up to the top of the truck and was standing there, in the hot wet blast of the wind in the night, with the truck roaring down the street, fishtailing occasionally, and she could see everything.
There was a rain of blobs falling out of the sky. They were shaped like teardrops, twirling crazily as they drove through the atmosphere, lodging themselves in buildings and in the road and in the tops of cars, coming down with an almighty splatter of thick grey mucus. Within these blobs, trembling—the truck was going too fast—Nona saw a thick pod thing like the miniature sleeping bags worms made for themselves before they bust out as moths. The pods and the mucus were transparent, wreathed in smoke, and there were irregular shapes inside—irregular and shivering shapes—and some of the pods had wings poking through, flexing, pushing.
Nona looked at the truck ahead, which was about one truck length away, and the truck behind, which was about one truck length behind. She walked forward to stand on the hard shell driver’s cabin, and with a little run-up she jumped forward and sailed through the distance to land on the truck in front. This hurt her feet briefly—it also hurt the thin metal shell on top of the truck, which dented. She looked up at the sky, and she bellowed: “You said you wouldn’t do anything weird!”