13 - Something Red as a Scarlet

In code, the ravaged, broken and bleeding hulk of the hut lay scorched, on it’s side like an injured warbird.  There was only a single foot under the hut though, instead of two.  The bird foot that had supported the walls was curled into a bloody knot just below where the polished bone jutted out of blackened hide. Ilax stood by the wall made up of interlocked bone and with upraised hands called down the rain, as Kyrus gently straightened and pulled rock and rubble away from what had been his ancestor’s code-hub, central to the creation of Gregor and Petra Lainz’s share of the terraforming of the planetary surface.  Like Prime’s Glass Mountain.

The rain Ilax was holding for his husband served two functions.  One to clean and repair the ancient, damaged systems and the other to hold the grey cloud and fog over everything so that Glass Mountain could not see them.

“Why such  grotesque images?” Ilax wondered out loud.  “A bone wall, a bone path, a hut that must have looked frightful bouncing around on what looks like a gigantic warbird’s claws?”

“I understand from Thriti-in-code that this is the kind of Earthan images that all our ancestors grew up with.  From an old, old myth cycle.”

“The way we teach our children about the ‘Giant Snow-Bakon’ or ‘The Girl Who Mandered Water’.”

“Yes.  But I grew up with ‘Canyon Mouth’, ‘Many-Coloured Bird Steals the Sun’ and ‘Rolling Rocks Chase Blue Wolf,” Kyrus answered.  “These are so old that only Dag has seen them in any kind of repair.”  He set his hands on the broken code, the injured leg looming over his head, soot and blood trailing down his hands and arms in the rain.  The Hive came to his call and began cloaking the injury with their millions of bodies, humming soothingly.

“If we can fix this then we don’t need to break into Glass Mountain.  We’ll have a way to open the moon station to us, since the links are still there, I think.”

“Mom says that she and the FireDrakes can be configured to get someone up to the moon, if we can keep the Station from betraying us.”

“Yes.  And that is where our young friend Terrence will be able to help us.”

“Your Radiance.  Surdeniliarch. Time to come out now…” The Hive buzzed and the zardukar called them out, like chimes, like bells ringing, like plucked harp notes.

Kyrus straightened and the swarm of code bees continued the delicate, intricate work of repairing the hut on warbird feet. “Thank you.  We’re coming.  Has the Hippifrei princess arrived yet?”

“No, Radiance.  Your son has gone ahead with a small, flying entourage to meet her.”

Ilax dropped his hands and the rain began to lighten up immediately.  “I could use a solid meal and a hefty glass of raki, love.”

“I’m coming.”

Their forms grew transparent and blew away to their outside bodies, even as he spoke.

Where the stone threshold of the hut lay, over the bone path, a light twinkled in the mound of trash covering the hole and a dozen bees came to investigate.  *Heal. Clean. Repair. Clean.*

The stone-melter bees began to clear away what was revealed to be a clear diamond box, the size of two large fisted hands placed finger to finger and wrist to wrist.  Inside the diamond was a golden cage of wires so thick it was hard to see the iron bars they wrapped.  The diamond box sat in a ruby puddle as if in a pool of blood.  On one side of the box was etched a screaming warbird, picked out in gold, and on the other, the planetary sun.  In the middle of all this protection something red as a Scarlet twitched, then moved, once, twice.  A pause. Then another motion, one-two, one-two, before it settled into a steady, solid rhythm.