The Furry MEGAPACK® Page 9

  The rest of the day passed in a flash. The refugees in the shanty town pulled all their resources together and celebrated the impending launch of the srellick vessel with a parade. Wrombarrans, dressed in colorful flowing ribbons, flew across the sky in cartwheeling, crisscrossing chains. They showered the on-looking alien dignitaries in fallen feathers, a soft down gathered from native avians. Everyone feasted at a spontaneous pot-luck party held around the srellick vessel.

  Then, as the sun set, Druthel watched with his people as the srellick and humans, his own Rhiannon included, filed onto the srellick vessel. She turned as she entered the hatch and looked over the crowd until she saw Druthel. She waved her delicate, wingless hand. Then, she turned again and was gone. The hatch closed behind the last of them, and the crowd waited, impatient and restless, for the engines to start.

  As they waited, the wrombarrans began to sing, a folk song that even wrombarran children knew. Their voices trilled together, rising in harmony, until the field was filled with their song. The sound of srellick engines starting drowned out the singing, and the wrombarran voices morphed into an inarticulate cheer.

  Druthel watched the vessel rise into the sky on a trail of white smoke. It dwindled to the pinpoint of a falling star, and then it disappeared altogether. The darkness of the night altered, however, and Druthel turned to see his planet’s moon shining behind him.

  * * * *

  On a spaceship many layers of hyperspace away, Rhiannon watched the pale dun disk of Wrombarra wink out of existence as eerily as its moon had months ago. She could still remember the warm feeling of Druthel’s leathery wings wrapped around her, and the promise he’d asked of her echoed in her ears.

  Rhiannon wasn’t comfortable with the solution her science had found for his people, but his people had seemed happy with it. Perhaps, she could find a similar solution for the last race she’d locked away from her own society. Rhiannon decided she’d send a message to Keida when she got back to Wespirtech. She’d need help if she was going to design portable, personal air filters for the Hoilyn. It wasn’t a perfect solution. But it would be better.

  THE GOING FORTH OF UADJET, by Frances Pauli

  Uadjet guarded an empty temple. She stood in the shadowed niche and watched the dust motes dance in the sunlight for enough years to eat the stones away, to pit the bricks and make softer edges of the once-sharp rectangular doorways. Golden light on golden stones, and a golden god long forgotten.

  Uadjet hid in the niche and pretended to still be useful.

  Her forked tongue slid between cracked lips at least once per decade. The twin tips gathered scents, tasted the world and found it lacking. No friends remained to leave their footprints in the swirling dusts. No glinting, animal eyes blinked back at her from the other nooks.

  Alone, afraid to think of the future, Uadjet drifted into her memories between ancient breaths. In her mind, she played with Sekhmet’s cubs on the terrace just to the right, her scaled head gleaming with Ra’s blessing while the little lions batted and nipped at the lacings of her sandals.

  The Nile still snaked below the stone shelf, glorious and full of Sobek’s people. The mighty crocodile had bathed there once beside her. They’d lounged on the mud and talked of gossip, of how Set slipped into his brother’s bedchamber when the great hawk was away, of how the hawk’s lady had welcomed him.

  Uadjet could still taste the dates, sun-filled and overflowing as much as Sobek’s belly. The crocodile’s laugh echoed across the desert while the rumbling of his great, green tummy stretched the limits of his kilt. She missed that laugh, the long snout studded with fat fangs. She missed the gossip and the Nile that, even now, rolled past her.

  Past them all.

  Snake eyes blinked in the darkness. Uadjet tasted the temple air and smoothed the cotton fabric of her dress with desiccated fingers. Still there. The Nile, sweet on her lips. Her thoughts turned on that note to Nekhbet, long lost to her. Sweet, sweet Nekhbet with eyes like pins and a neck so like the snake she loved. Where are you my blessed? Should not the vulture still fly, when the whole world has gone to death and our glorious bodies to decay?

  The thought drew her like no other could, and Uadjet shrank to the cold floor. She slithered, the black cobra that might slip unnoticed, once more, into the sunlight. One last kiss, one last taste of life. Her body curved against the dust, marked the sigils of her passing there. Her tongue flicked and flicked, gaining speed as her impulse grew, the urge to be out and alive again…if only for a breath, if only to see the Nile shimmer.

  She reached the terrace but hesitated at the exit to the temple. Uadjet tasted a single drop of sunlight as her tongue tips broke that invisible barrier. Instantly, the light of Ra entered her, a far off whisper. It filled her head and spread warmth down and out through every ebony scale. The cobra raised the front of its length from the stones, lifted toward heaven and slid forth into the light.

  “Uadjet, you have kept me waiting.” Ra’s voice rained upon the terrace. It called her higher, and her body shifted and rippled until she knelt again, a woman with the cobra’s head bowed in honor of the most high.

  “You wait upon me?”

  “You are the last of us, Uadjet. Does that not infuriate you?”

  “Yes.” She hissed it, spat venom to the stones and heard them sizzle.

  “Then what would you do, goddess?”

  Do? Uadjet shivered despite the sun’s heat. Had she grown lax in her niche? Content to while away the centuries on pity and soft memories? She had. Of course she had.

  “Whatever I might to serve you.” She answered with a stronger voice, with determination pressing at her words. Oh, to be doing again!

  “Not to serve me, child.” Ra’s voice turned on a note, spoke with tenderness now that she’d fully awoken. “Not for me. For you.”

  “For me?” Uadjet’s mind filled with vengeance. She saw the black bull of Set’s rage in that, but she also saw the lioness slain, the tawny pelts of her cubs crimson with their mother’s blood. She would do something. She should have done something already.

  “You have lingered alone, too long in shadow,” Ra said. “I fear for you, last one.”

  “I will go forth.”

  “Yes.”

  “I must go.” She would poison the world for their crimes next. She would slither. She would strike.

  Ra’s voice chanted in echo, carried on the sun and the sparkles bejeweling the Nile. “Go forth, go.”

  * * * *

  Uadjet, the cobra, took to the fields.

  She’d wound between the reeds along the Nile banks, felt the cold mud, the silt of life, beneath her belly and grew stronger for it. Then she lay for three days in the full light of Ra on a flat rock beside a palm where the gathered force of her master’s heat fueled her fury to be off and moving.

  When the bloodlust grew too strong to restrain, Uadjet entered the realm of man. She followed the furrows between the crops and let the thumping of the shadufs beat her war march to the winds. Sweet water trickled here, kept the crops green and full and eased the passing of her scales, frictionless, silent, and so very deadly.

  She moved ever away from the great Nile now, inland, to where the mud sprouted houses and the fields had been dotted by the tread of tender brown feet. Soft ankles, the tight skin of those who’d abandoned her kind long ago.

  Uadjet’s tongue danced, out and in. She tasted the world, and let the scents guide her.

  Once, the acrid scent of smoke burned her tongue. She crossed the field then, veered over the ruts, skipping like a long black stone for a ways. Here she met the swollen ox, saw Hathor’s brown eyes looking back at her, the slick, wet nose and kind expression hanging beneath a pair of curving, sickle horns.

  Hathor, who had been mother to them all, who had steered Uadjet gently into Nekhbet’s arms when she might have hesitated, grown shy and chosen to remain alone. Instead of broad maternal shoulders, this head hung from thin, sunken blades. Shoulders used to the yoke of man
, meant to serve and haul and carry.

  The great cow goddess stood always proud. Her arms had been wide enough to encircle them all, to hug the whole world to her nurturing breast.

  Uadjet hissed and reared toward the sun’s disk. She flattened her skull, spread twin spots and danced side to side for the burdened beast. A hoof stamped the mud. The animal snorted fear, tasted of a life of abuse and labor. Uadjet struck. Her needle teeth bit into thick skin and injected justice, relief, pity into the flesh below.

  A mercy killing, really. Not quite vengeance. Not yet.

  The blood lent her power. The great shaking of the ground, when the animal struck it, when the ox lay on its side with bony legs churning the earth… Through all of this, Uadjet grew stronger, more sure in her task.

  She stayed until the beast died, until she felt its last breath whisper against her scales. Potential. Uadjet heard something there, something precious but slippery enough that she couldn’t quite snatch it. Go forth, Uadjet.

  She slithered on, angled away from the water again. Now, however, her thoughts rattled. There’d been a message there. Something she might have utilized to greater good. Her mind churned and her belly scutes riffled over soft silt. The rich soil that brought life to the region, that brought life…

  The last breath had tasted of life.

  Uadjet stifled a surging of hope. Not that. Ra hadn’t possibly meant that, had he? She hissed and heard her own anger on the wind. The years were too long, the gap too wide to breach.

  Not for me, Uadjet, for you.

  Her double tongue flickered, filtered the air. Why had she gone forth? What did she want?

  For you.

  * * * *

  The house hugged a lumping of the earth, shaded by four trees and cracking at its mud corners. The woman emerged from a dark doorway. Her long neck twisted this way and that, and her long hair fluffed in the breeze like dark feathers.

  Uadjet hid in the grass and watched her.

  A screen of blades criss-crossed her vision. Her tongue flicked. Her eyes tracked the woman’s feet. She heard the singing of a soft voice, words about life and joy and circles. Uadjet listened and waited. She felt the woman’s song vibrate against her belly. She felt the gentle tread of brown feet as the quaking of the world.

  The woman plucked a reed basket from beside her doorway. She carried it beneath one arm, came with her hips rocking from side to side into the field where the snake hid. Her long skirts played a harmony against the grasses, whisked in time to the words of the song. She smiled, and placed bare feet against the silt.

  When she lay the basket down beside the cobra, Uadjet held still, became a twig among the blades. The woven vessel hid her. She lay in its shadow while the woman started her work, leaning over, plucking at the unwanted growing things. Soft hands, brown fingers, slim, strong shoulders.

  Strong enough.

  Uadjet flicked and slid nearer. She peeked around the basket at a dark foot, painted toenails, and an ankh tattooed just above the ankle bone. If she’d doubted once, that sign now proved her path was true. The cobra fixed upon it, targeted that golden loop, and struck home.

  The woman shrieked. She kicked out, but the goddess on her heel would not be deterred. Uadjet tasted her sweet blood, rolled it over her tongue and let her teeth inject the woman’s death. Quickly, quickly she must fall!

  A second wailing rose from the basket. In the reed nest, an infant howled as its mother tumbled to her knees. Uadjet released the tender ankle and coiled in waiting. Her tongue danced, in and out, while the baby screamed and the mother’s mouth opened and closed.

  No sound now, only the sacred breath. The breath Uadjet must not lose again. She lifted herself high, spread her hood and danced from side to side. The woman’s arms flailed. Her eyes grew wide as stars. When the cobra only stared back, she sighed and fell.

  Uadjet rushed forward. She lay herself along the woman, a twist of snake up the body, a pair of hooded eyes and eager, searching tongue. She positioned herself to catch the last breath, and this time, she knew exactly what to do with it.

  For me.

  Pink lips parted. Uadjet closed the gap. The woman’s last breath escaped her corpse, and Uadjet caught it, inhaled the life force, and spoke an ancient name. Nekhbet. Nekhbet, my blessed. The cobra held the moment still in time, held her breath and danced. She spoke the incantations, sang the words, and summoned all the hope she had left in the world.

  * * * *

  Uadjet lay in the temple. Her nostrils filled with the scent of copal burning, and her body filled with the sensations of Nekhbet’s arms around her. The soft skin of her lover brushed against her own, and Uadjet’s snake tongue darted out and back, tasting honey flesh and smoke at once.

  “Be still love. The boy sleeps.” Nekhbet’s voice was true and clear. Still, Uadjet struggled with the meaning of the words.

  Her head tilted to one side. She tightened her hood to offer a clearer view of the vulture holding her in strong brown arms. A crook beak, hard as the black feathers were soft. Twin eyes like pins regarding her with traces of humor.

  “The boy?” Uadjet’s voice echoed against the temple walls, even at a whisper.

  “Shh.” Nekhbet stroked long fingers over Uadjet’s arm. “It is okay, Uadjet. You are no longer alone.”

  “It was so long.”

  “I know.”

  The cobra sighed and leaned back against Nekhbet’s chest. She inhaled the copal, cleared her thoughts, and remembered. The boy. The woman had carried a basket that cried to the sun. Nekhbet giggled, read her thoughts and pointed with one painted toe toward a brazier where the copal smoke rolled free. The ankh on her ankle gleamed now, touched with power.

  Beside the burner, the basket waited. The child slept.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” Nekhbet said. “He’s been waiting for us.”

  Uadjet and Nekhbet, the red and the white. Together they were the crown that joined kingdoms, that made kings. Nekhbet’s arms loosened. Her voice goaded the snake from Uadjet’s heart. “Go to him, my love. Bring him forth.”

  The cobra uncoiled, a black goddess. It slithered across the temple floor seeking the last breath that might bring life again. In her heart, she readied the incantations, sang the name for him. For him this time. Horus. She sang for the baby as she came, as she lifted and as she struck.

  AFTER THE LAST BELL’S RUNG, by Patrick “Bahu” Rochefort

  Sports Annotated #322, August, 1993

  Portrait of the Sport Series—Boxing: After the Last Bell’s Rung

  In this recurring feature of Sports Annotated, our staff writers take a look at the stories of the people inside the sport, great and small. This month’s feature is Balus Bubalis, the 1968 Texas Pro-Am Heavyweight Champion, retired from the sport without a professional bout.

  It’s a warm spring day in Portland, and the windows of Balus Bubalis’ physiotherapy office are cracked open to the breeze. There is a bright green feather on a little white ribbon tied to the top of the windowsill, and the incoming breeze makes the feather dance gently. The old water buffalo bull’s eyes are glued to it, and his nose is to the incoming breeze. The feather belongs to a peach-faced lovebird who can’t be older than six. She is featured in a photo down the hall from his office, one of the bull’s recovered patients.

  The feather, Balus explains, is the first she shed after learning to fly all over again. “Her mama got t-boned Christmas day. Mama did alright, but her daughter didn’t. Poor girl had her left wing shattered in six places. Two surgeries and six months in a cast before she saw me. It took me another six months to get her flying again, after. Brave girl. You couldn’t keep her down. Kids, they can heal from anything, you know?”

  He speaks with disarming sincerity in his praise for his patients. Balus Bubalis has a Texan accent that’s as thick as any Scottish brogue, and takes some effort to transcribe. It’s a rambling, rumbling drawl that mortgages trailing g’s to pay the rent on double-wide vowels, built
on a voice two octaves lower than God. His voice fits him like his recurve horns and old boxing gloves do.

  The Portland Dunkers’ home court is as removed from Texas and boxing as can be, but Balus brings a piece of his home state with him in his voice, despite it being twenty-five years since his triumphs in the Texas pro-am circuit.

  As we sit down over a bowl of soup and coffee at a Vietnamese diner down the street from the basketball arena, a flurry of spring snow blows in briefly. Balus greets the waitress by her first name, and is greeted in turn. He is Balus to everyone, from employers and team members on to the staff of the diner. He insists on it with a friendly smile that invites others past the barrier of formalities. As we sip soup and coffee, Balus asks if we can tackle the tough questions first.

  I start with the obvious: Why had his strong amateur career never transitioned to professional fighting?

  “When I was a super heavyweight, the top professional ranks were made up pretty exclusively of elephants, rhinos, and maybe the occasional polar bear or hippo,” he explains. “Nine of the top-ten ranked boxers in the class were elephants and rhinos. And forget that!” Balus exclaims, spreading his hands wide over the tabletop in a helpless gesture. “Boxing a rhino is is like picking a fight with a refrigerator. Your punches are going to do about as much, and you’re going to just look stupid for swinging away.”

  Before the World Hybrid Boxing Federation reorganized the sport in 1985, weight classes were the only divisions that separated predator and prey species, armored and unarmored. Balus shakes his head when asked about the revolution, and its effects on the sport. “It needed to happen, but not for all weight classes. Fracturing up the sport into species only led to worse mismatches, and more injuries. Middleweight and lighter, that’s where all the real excitement is. Folks watching on TV, they wanna see big sluggers knock the stuffing out of each other. But for me? I’d rather watch mixed species welterweights go any day. More speed, more technique, more variety, more of the sweet science.”