Scientifiction

by Howard Waldrop

Illustration by Darryl Elliott

One of her knobs itched.

Lala reached inside her vest and scratched it with the hand not holding the spear.

Something made a sound to her left. She unbuttoned her jacket’s elbow flaps so she could hear better, turned back and forth. Nothing else.

She stood at the guard post on the cliff outside the Settlement overlooking the water. The sun lay as it always had, low on the horizon, big and dull in color, speckled with black, giving off much below-red along its rim. Out of the black dots, occasional other colors flared through, sometimes in long slow curtains that faded as they rose.

The water was flat. There was a thin cold wind that barely rippled its surface. A thick crust of salt, reddish-brown in the dim light, lay along its edges.

The sound came again. This time she saw one of the roaches down to the left, along the shore. She shifted her spear. Then she saw it was one of the smaller, solitary, purple-colored ones, not one of the ones who ran in the great packs.

The roach had come down to the ocean along the beach to the left of the Settlement. The beach itself was bare except for the salt-boulders at the waterline.

In the distant curve of the flat sound two small outcrops of rock stuck out. The farthest one was covered, like the beach, with salt-rocks, but the closer had a sparse growth of lichens on the landward side.

The purple roach hesitated, feeling the air with its antennae. Then it began to run toward the island, and only broke through the surface tension halfway out, dropping down into it, but not sinking because of the salinity of the water. It wallowed on toward the rock outcropping, its legs working awkwardly, rising and falling, sending ripples out onto the flat water of the sound.

A fin broke by the far island, delta-shaped. Then another down the curve of the sound, out from the salt-beach.

The roach stopped, half-sunk in the ocean, not moving.

A third fin, and tail, came up and went down just off the lichen-covered rocks.

The cockroach turned around, more ripples spreading out from it, and began crawling its way back toward the beach.

The fins showed again, swung into line.

The roach worked harder, picking up speed.

Three furrows of water, humped moving tunnels, came toward it from three sides.

The roach slosh-wallowed furiously.

There was a smash and slap of water, two more slaps and a crunch. Spray went up, obscuring that part of the bay. Then it settled; two or three swirls drifted away. One leg, still working, floated to the surface, making feeble ripples. Something dark took the leg under, fin breaking water, then was gone.

Then the sea was flat again under the red-speckled sun that took up a fifth of the sky.

Footsteps on the ramp. Atta came down from the Settlement, spear in hand. She rubbed antennules with Lala. “You’re relieved of guard duty, Lala,” she said. “Anything happening?”

“Not much,” said Lala. She turned to go up the ramp, then stopped. “Ever notice how there are fewer and fewer of those solitary roaches all the time?”

“It’s the Roach-Packs,” said Atta, spitting. “Because of them, there’s fewer and fewer of everything out in the Cold World.” She pulled her coat tighter around her.

Lala went up the ramp and back through the wall into the Settlement.

She made herself some lichen soup on the Fuel-stove. Then she went into resting-phase, and then stirred herself and groomed, taking care especially of the knob on her right side halfway between her arm and leg. Its twin on the left was not giving her any trouble at all.

Then she went down the runs and corridors to visit the workshop of Doer Tola, who was usually busy, but interested in everything, to tell her what she’d seen on watch.

The Doer greeted her with her antennules in the outer workshop. The Doer listened to her story, then said, “I just found something you should see. Come with me.”

They went into the inner room, lit by the glow of a Fuel-furnace and several Fuel-lamps. Occasionally one of the lamps gave off one of the long sparks that went right through your body without burning.

A roach was tied down on a low table, its legs hanging over the sides. It was half their size, and Lala could tell by its grey-brown color it was from a pack. It moved weakly, death some short time away.

“One of the ones not killed on their last raid,” said Doer Tola. She went to the Fuel-furnace and drew up the door, then blocked the lamps with covers of the grey metal. Lala could still see dimly in the below-red.

Doer Tola brought a covered Fuel-lantern near the roach. “Watch,” she said.

She uncovered a small portion of the lantern. The first light falling along its side made the roach’s legs move very fast, even in its weakened state.

She repeated the movement. Again the wounded roach moved.

“I’m convinced they have something along their sides that makes them move when the light changes quickly.”

The roach let out a feeble sound.

“Don’t you see?” she asked Lala. “The light never changes. At least, not from the sun. And it looks like it’s trying to move away from the light. What could be the use of that? The Settlement’s the only source of light besides the sun and stars, and the light should not change that much… It has me puzzled. I suppose I’ll have to take one of these things apart and find out. Probably not this one, though, it’s too full of holes.”

The roach moved weakly and a low whining sound came from it.

“And I’m sure this one’s voice organs were damaged,” she said. She groomed one of her antennules with her right forearms. “The more we find out about them, the better we can understand them, maybe even control them.”

“That would be nice,” said Lala.

There was a jump of brightness that both of them felt; even the roach struggled. They looked around. A long spark came through the wall from the landward side.

They heard a rattle of voices. Then the sound of feet in the corridors, then at the entry to the workshop.

“Doer Tola! Doer Tola!” yelled a voice. Someone rushed in as Tola uncovered the lantern.

“Doer Tola! Doer Tola!” said the excited worker. “Something—something—”

“Calm down, calm down,” said Tola, rubbing her antennules toward the worker’s head. “What is it?”

“We—we don’t know. But—we think it’s a new Sparky!”

“You’ve never seen a Sparky,” said the Doer, “hardly anyone has.” But she was getting excited, too—both Lala and the worker could smell it.

“It’s big! It’s bright, brighter than anything, brighter than the Sun!” said the worker.

“Where?”

“Come on!” said the worker (her name was Ilna). “This way, Doer, this way!”

They stood on the very top of the Settlement, on the jumbled pile of straight rocks that leaned up. The sun was behind them, the sky darkening to halfway overhead from it, then brightness—brightness in the upper registers, a fountain of higher light came up from the low place behind the Settlement. It shot up into the air many times taller than the nearest real hill, thin and wavery at its top, brighter and thicker at the bottom.

Long sparks came from it, some of them through the ground in front. Others went up, out into the sky, dulling the stars. It got bigger as they watched.

The whole populace was on the Settlement buildings, excited, talking—the air was as thick with smells as after an abortive raid from a roving pack.

“Well, well,” said Doer Tola. “I never thought I would see one. It has to be a Sparky, there’s nothing else it could be.”

There was a hum all around them. The Leader and Doer Sima came up, watched a short while. The Leader was very nervous, putting out as much indecision as the Sparky put out light.

Sima and Tola rubbed antennules and talked excitedly with each other.

“Well,” said the Leader (there was just so long she could watch before she went back to being Leader), “what are we to do?”

“Oooh!” said the crowd. A big long spark curved up out over the Settlement and went into the sea. More showered into the low hills around them.

“Doer Sima will take a party out to see how big it is, and what it’s doing,” said Tola. “They’ll have to go get Fuel-miner’s suits, if it really is a Sparky.”

“What else could it be?” asked the Leader. “We all know what a Sparky is, don’t we?”

“Well,” said Doer Sima, “we reason it to be like what happens when Fuel-miners get two big pieces of true Fuel too close together. Only on a more massive scale. And somehow, they happen by themselves. Perhaps the action of water, or rare shifts in the—”

“Quite right,” said the Leader.

“So it has to be a Sparky,” said Doer Sima. “But we must first find out its size.”

“And I’ll inventory all the Fuel-miners’ equipment, see how much more we’ll need,” said Tola. “The lichen-harvesters should be working—we’re all probably going to be at this a while.”

“Just make sure you deal quickly with this thing,” said the Leader. “I’ve heard stories.”

“We’ve all heard tales,” said Doer Sima. “What we need are hard, usable facts.”

“You should go talk to Grandfather Bugg,” said Lala.

They all turned to look at her, the Leader showing surprise. “Lala, isn’t it? Why should we?”

“He’s seen a Sparky before. He told me once.”

“You and Doer Tola can go see the old relict if you want,” said the Leader. “I’ll be about readying the Settlement for whatever actions we need to take, whatever plan the Doers decide on.”

“My people,” she said, turning to the crowd. “Watch for a while if you like, unless it becomes violent; this is a true wonder. But soon we will be busy, very busy indeed. I suggest that you get rest-phased, for, once we know where we stand, we will not stop. The very life of the Settlement might depend on it…” With a wave, she was away.

Some began to go back down into the corridors and buildings, but kept looking backward, stopped, watched. The Sparky grew higher and higher, more and more beams and sprays came out of it.

It was, as Ilna had said, brighter than the sun. For, to Lala’s surprise, she looked down at the ground, and found that her shadow was on the wrong side.

Not many came here.

It was down one of the unmarked, unused old corridors, where the Settlers had first lived, and had first begun to fill this place of wonders. Lala and her mother had lived here, too, when she was very young, resting-phase and resting-phase ago.

A worker came by on some business or other. No one else was near, unlike the other corridors in the Settlement, where someone was always about.

A strange smell filled the air.

“That’s him, I suppose,” said Doer Tola.

“No, I think it’s the Old Smell. The one from the early days. Maybe even from the Cold World.” said Lala.

“That’s very probably a myth,” said the Doer. “Anyway, unlikely.”

“I’m surprised you and Doer Sima haven’t been here, studying.”

“Believe me,” said the Doer. “The Leader keeps us hopping, and there’s plenty more and plenty more to find out. But this is interesting…” She had stopped to look at digging marks on the wall.

“Doer Tola. The Sparky?”

“What? Oh, yes.” They went down a long dark corridor, the smell increasing. “Well, it’s him, too.” said Lala. Then:

“Grandfather? Grandfather Bugg?”

“Heh? Huh? Who’s that come to see old Grandfather Bugg?”

“Lala. And Doer Tola!”

“Doer… Doer… oh, yeah, yeah. Must be big doin’s! Come on in, the door’s open. Hee hee hee.”

The room was very dark, there wasn’t even a Fuel-lamp open. They let their eyes adjust.

“Over here,” he said. “I ain’t so good on colors anymore, but I’m still okay in the below-red, and me an’ above-purple’s just like that.”

He was more time-diminished, older than even Lala remembered. His chest was sunken in, his legs were spindly (one of them was missing from the second-knee down). His abdomen was very swollen and hung out from his clothing. He had a thing; in the old days he had kept it covered.

“What’s it, Lala? Been a long time since I seen you. Seems like just a little time ago you was with your mama—”

Doer Tola made a noise.

“Grandfather Bugg,” said Lala. “There’s a new Sparky!”

“You’re excretin’ me,” he said.

“No,” said Doer Tola. “Lala said you’d seen one before.”

“Seen two,” he said.

“Two?”

“Once when I was litty-bitty. Somebody had to hold me up I was so young. All I actually ’member of that one, it was bright. But they talked about it a long while after. That was the really bad one where bad stuff happened afterward.”

“What things?” asked the Doer.

“Well, can’t remember what they’s most upset about. I’s litty-bitty, didn’t understand. Some big things movin’ round, big troubles. But the bad lasted a long time after that Sparky. I saw that myself, growin’ up.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like, like kids being hatched with six legs, you know, another set of arms or legs in the middle. Right out of the knobs. Some wasn’t born at all. Or all wrong. They told me as I’s growin’ it took a real long time to put that Sparky out. Kept tryin’ to come back.”

“You never told me about that one,” said Lala. ‘You only told me about the one when you were grown.”

“Well that one was real bad, but bad right at the first. Lost a lotta people in that one. Came up right in the middle of the Settlement, just past where the Meetin’ Hall is now. Took too much time to get people out, decide what to do, get the work organized. You can tell how bad it was if they needed me to help,” he said.

“The Meeting Hall?” asked Doer Tola.

“Well, yep, just past where it was built. Where this ’un?”

“Outside. Eastward. It’s very big, very bright.”

‘You ain’t seen bright ’til you stared right into the middle of one of’em like I did,” said Grandfather Bugg. “I have to see this. Imagine, three Sparkies in one lifetime!”

“There’ll be time,” said Doer Tola, “no matter how fast we can organize. Unless… unless it gets so bad and hot we have to leave. What do you remember about putting it out?”

“Well, what was you gonna do if I wasn’t around?”

“Organize the Fuel-miners. Get Fuel-miners’ suits for the workers. Make covering slabs out of the Fuel-miners’ suit-metal.”

“That dull grey heavy stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“Well, cover the Sparky with the metal. Two sheets, if need be.”

“That’s good, that’s good. But that’s what they did with the one when I was a baby, that’s why it kept comin’ back. You need some of that black stuff, what you call it…”

“The shiny black stuff?”

“Naw, naw, that crumbly black stuff—oh, excrete, what you call it? That stuff the miners is always havin’ to dig through to get to the Fuel!”

“We call it the crumbly black stuff,” said Doer Tola.

“That’s it. That crumbly black stuff! You got to pile it on real good, all around, all over the dull grey metal slab. Before you put the slab on, too. Otherwise it’ll come back, sure as shootin’!”

“You’re positive about that?”

“You think I spent who knows how long shovelin’ that stuff into the Sparky not to know what I’m talkin’ about?”

“We always assumed that crumbly black stuff was just an indicator you’d find Fuel there.”

“You’re the Doer! You tell me!” said Grandfather Bugg. The air was filled with irritation and the Old Smell. “I just know it works. Somebody back then was smart enough to figger it out. Don’t y’all talk to each other?”

“Not as such,” said Doer Tola. “I don’t guess it could hurt. Thank you. Time is of the essence. Lala?”

“Shortly,” she said. The Doer left.

Grandfather Bugg fidgeted, annoyed.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you. I have been busy, both working and guarding, whatever needs done.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Grandfather Bugg. “They was a time people came to see me when they didn’t need me, on a sudden. Like you used to.”

“I thought you could tell us a lot.”

“Evidently, I can.”

“No, not just this. I know you’re not that old, but you used to say it used to be all different. That we probably came from the Cold World.”

“Well, maybe we did, and maybe we didn’t. I never was sure. I know that they was a time though, when guys like me was needed and respected (not that I ever was, but my great-great-great-great Grandfather Bugg still did it). They was a time when I would have been needed, I coulda help make you ten thousand sisters, and they would of all been you?”

“How was that possible?”

“I don’t know. Never did. That’s what my great-great-great-great Grandfather Bugg told me.”

“I should go now,” said Lala.

“Don’t forget. I want to see that Sparky, and soon. ’Fore it burns us all up!”

“I’ll send some people for you.”

“Excrete!” he said. “One or two’s enough.”

“All right.”

“You do that,” he said. He looked her up and down. “Anybody tell you you got a fine young shape, from what I can tell in the below-red?”

“Oh Grandfather Bugg!” she said. She left.

Then they began to work, and they worked and worked and worked.

They had to move everything out behind the Settlement near the Sparky’s raging lights—everything from the workshops and the mines. They beat out two great sheets of dull gray Miner’s suit-metal, the size Doer Sima indicated they would need. Sometimes Lala helped the workers and miners at the hammers, sometimes she ran lichen up to everybody from the farms down below, sometimes she stood guard.

The lights of the Sparky had at first kept the Pack-roaches away, then had drawn them near, but not too near. So the guard-watch had to be sharp, both on the Settlement and the workers out behind it.

The Sparky’s flames went higher, it was more violent in the above-purple, so bright they disappeared into the higher-vision halfway up the column. Great long twisting flares roiled through it. The ground itself began to heat up, burning at the base of the Sparky. It grew larger, and they had to beat the sheets out to cover more area.

Others brought up heaps of the crumbly black stuff, piling it higher and higher, as close to the Sparky as was deemed safe.

The heat grew. The whole Settlement was bathed in glowing light; huge moving shadows of the workers and miners danced on its walls as they came and went.

At last they were ready. Some workers had been detailed to build a ramped incline toward the Sparky. They, and everyone who had to work out there, had been fitted with Fuel-miners’ suits, or simpler ones. They cut down on the heat from the Sparky but they were clumsy; body heat soon made the insides clammy. The eyepieces fogged constantly.

The ones working on the ramp could only do it for a very short time before having to rest. But the ramp extended closer, higher, so the first plate could be pushed on its way. They had to stop, finally. The heat, sparks, and light were overpowering up that close.

The whole Settlement was readied, suits all around, even for the guards. They brought Grandfather Bugg, in a chair, to the top of the highest part of the Settlement, so he could watch.

They lined up the first great plate on the ramp.

The Leader stood in her Fuel-miner’s suit along with the rest.

Doer Sima signaled. A long line of workers threw boulders of the crumbly black stuff from one to another, the last two throwing them toward the sputtering blaze of the Sparky.

There were mostly Fuel-miners on the front edge of the great dull grey slab. Lala found herself on the front corner nearest the Sparky.

It roared above them. She was walking backward, feeling the heat and light on the back of her Miner’s suit; she watched its reflection stretching up behind her in the dull grey slab, the fanned flaming light blotting out stars and sky, everything but itself.

Then someone stumbled, two fell on the far back end. The slab jerked from her grip as the front line of Miners ran to the sides. The metal edge came back forward, hit her. She tripped, swung around, lost footing on the edge of the ramp, scrambled, and as she came up, the slab swung into her again, and she fell twisting backward. And fell headfirst into the Sparky.

There was an intense instant of light and pain. A spark bigger than her head went through her.

Still she fell, long after she should have hit the ground and been killed. Then the air crushed down on her, forcing itself into her spiracles.

Bright. Too bright. That color between yellow and blue. Too blue, too.

Lala hit the soft yielding ground. Green. That was the color. The ground was green, covered with something soft.

Shapes. Shapes all around.

Thick thick air. Smells and tastes came to her antennules in a haze she could not distinguish. She was stunned in all her sense, wondered why she was not burning.

The sky was blue. The sun was not where it should be. It was high in the sky, off to the upper right. It was a full round circle. It was far too small and very very bright.

She balanced on her wobbly legs. She turned her head and the helmet of the Fuel-miner’s suit.

Far up behind her in the air was a flicker, a shimmer where the Sparky must be, from where she’d fallen. But it was barely there. As she watched a long spark appeared, came out, but it moved slowly, as slowly as she could walk, and went up into the air.

It was as she turned to follow its path that she saw another thing.

There was a thing coming through the air. It was like a slim roach, only black and yellow, it had clear things above its back that went up and down in a pattern—up bend down bend up bend down bend. It came toward her much more slowly even than the spark had moved. She could see the shimmer from the small bright sun on the clear things on its back. She could see it looking at her.

It was so small.

She saw that there were other larger things, beyond the thing with clear things on its back that hung in the air before her.

The air was too thick, the sky too blue, the ground a green blur. It was all too sudden, too overpowering. She began to fall to her leg-joints, saw the green ground coming up toward her.

Those other large things had been moving, moving all the time, very very slowly. Her depth perception was not working right, with all the colors. They must be ten or twelve times as large as she. Larger than anything living should be.

There were three of them. One had appeared slowly from the left, she reasoned, out of a grey space she saw now was the edge of a building all straight and level, not jumbled up like the Settlement. She had not seen the first two at their biggest because they were bent forward pushing something.

The something was round on the ends and longer in the middle. There was a circle of the color yellow on the long part. In the circle were three patches of black like the blades of one of the fans in Doer Tola’s workshop. She knew Fuel-miners sometimes found the black and yellow pieces while they were digging. It usually meant they were nearing Fuel.

They pushed it very slowly and it moved very slowly forward.

Then she saw that one of the three things was looking at her very slowly. It and the two others were covered with something very loosely; her below-red was not working much but there were shapes inside (the sun and everything were giving off below-red). Something like her own Fuel-miner’s suit. It had a bulky head and two large shiny round places like eyes, only set too far forward and close together for good vision.

It slowly reached out and slowly touched one of the two bent-over ones slowly moving the round thing.

The one it touched turned and watched her slowly.

The other kept rolling the thing, then pushed it to one side and rolled it a little faster, and then slowly turned back to the two others.

Indistinct loud noises came to Lala through the sleeves of her suit.

More indistinct noises.

Then the third one turned to look at her slowly.

Slowly the middle one started toward her.

She jerked upright, took two steps backward.

The one coming at her stopped slowly, waited, started slowly again. The other two slowly looked around the first and then looked toward each other and then looked back. It took them a long time.

The big thing advanced on her. Soon she would have to do something.

She looked back at the shimmer from the Sparky. It hung high in the air, higher than she could get to. There was nothing to climb on to get there. The shimmer was feeble, flickering, barely visible with so much light from the sun, the sky, the green ground.

The thing got very close very slowly and very largely. She had never seen anything that big move before, no matter how slowly. The other two had started toward her, one to one side, one to the other.

She ran to the left.

The one closest looked left and right slowly as it came on.

Then she ran to the right.

The one on the right jerked back slowly away from her when she stopped.

The one in the middle looked slowly around and saw her, his back to the glowing Sparky.

The one on the far side left the ground. Could they, like the black-and-yellow living thing, hold themselves up in the air? But no. It leaned up then down while it was in the air and parts of it touched the green ground again.

Loud indistinct sounds came from it and the other two.

An arm-like thing came out for her from the right. There were five extensions on the end of it. They were curving inward. They would miss her.

Then Lala ran. She ran toward the one on the ground. She jumped up near the top end, pushing off it. She grabbed the one in the middle somewhere far up. Where she grabbed gave, she swung slowly back and forth. Arm-things came down toward her slowly.

She saw, as she pushed off from it into the air, into the eye-place on the thing, and through it she had a glimpse of an eye. It was round, like the eye-place outside it. There seemed to be cilia around it. It grew slowly wide.

Then she was gone, on the leap, out toward the Sparky, into the white, into the hot pain, the sharp streaks of piercing heavy light.

And onto the ground.

Onto the shimmering white and dull blue ground. Beside one of the crumbly black pieces. The heavy air was gone. She could breathe again.

“Lala!” someone yelled, and a rope flopped near her; she grabbed it, losing her helmet, and they pulled her up the slope.

Anxious faces, the smell of concern. Behind her the Sparky, sending raging heavy blue hght into the air.

She lost the conscious use of her body for some little while. It all went away.

It all came back. Someone had put another helmet on her.

She turned from where she lay.

Everyone was there. They were not working. They were all standing stock-still, even the guards on the outside. They were all looking into the heart of the Sparky.

A dark place was forming in its midst, high up. It was just a smudge, a shape, but unmoving while the rest of the Sparky was sputtering, shimmering jets of fire and light.

The populace—workers, guards, Fuel-miners, the Doers, the Leader—were fascinated.

Lala turned her head back. Another dark place formed beside the first, more indistinct.

“Work!” yelled Lala. “Quick! Work! Work!”

The crowd jerked at her words. Then the Leader and the Doers started yelling “Work! Work!” The smell of activity filled the thin air, even over the reek of the Sparky.

The Fuel-miners regripped the grey metal slab, staggering under the load. Workers in patchwork suits threw chunks of the black stuff into the roaring base of the unnatural furnace. The line stretched back to the tumbled mass of fragments, workers heaving one to the next, passing the chunks along the line, throwing them at the raging light before them.

They slid the grey metal slab out, closer, closer, pulling it over the jumble of the black fragments growing around them.

Lala pushed on the back edge, doing what she could. The light in front of her was too bright to look at.

She looked up above, into the fan of the Sparky. There were three, four—no, something else began to appear—five dark spaces in the middle of it.

“Now!” screamed Doer Tola.

The Fuel-miners heaved, pushed, ran forward.

“More black stuff!” yelled the Leader.

The long slab of grey metal slid out onto the base of the Sparky. A jumble of black boulders bounced atop it.

The Sparky wavered, shook, long streaks of light came out of it through the ground before them.

The dark thing in the air in its middle was now five things going into one thing, getting wider. They could see it moving now.

“The other slab!” yelled Doer Sima.

“More black. More slab!” screamed the Leader.

The Sparky flared bright again.

The workers were a blur, speeding up; the pile of black boulders went down quickly as they threw it atop the first metal slab on the Sparky.

The Fuel-miners struggled with the second slab. It was heavier and thicker.

“Everybody! Guards! Everybody!” yelled the Leader.

They dropped their spears and ran in to help.

Doer Tola said to the worker-line at the black pile: “No matter what happens, keep piling it on ’til it’s all gone. Then get more!” Then she ran down to the dull metal slab.

“I said ‘Everybody’!” screamed the Leader, looking around. There were those throwing the black stuff, and those pushing the slab, and her. She ran down to the back edge of the slab and pushed.

“Push, push!” yelled voices. The black crumbly boulders had covered so much of the ramp their footing slipped.

Above them the Sparky stood up, slinging off light. In its center the five dark things, the thing they joined, the thing behind it hung over them. There had never been anything so large. And it grew. Another dark place formed near the base of the Sparky, off to their right.

The slab went up, over the highest black boulder, down, stuck. They lifted, pushed, heaved.

Lala saw the Sparky’s reflection, the dark shape in the metal before her. She pulled. The Leader, two workers away with a look of grim determination, shifted her grip. Heave. Push.

Lala’s head went into the slab. Her helmet twisted. She couldn’t see.

Then the slab moved, spun, slid forward.

The light went down.

Lala turned her helmet back. Everybody gave one more shove.

She saw that the light from the Sparky had halved, then the sparks arched out shorter. The dark shape above them and the one level with the ground to the right moved then, still slow, but a violent shuddering, wrenching it slowly back and forth.

There was a sound beginning, low and slow and far away, and it was building in volume.

They ran. All of them, up and out and away. The workers dropped their black crumbly burdens, backed toward the Settlement.

The dark thing in the air moved slowly from one side to the other as the sound grew and grew, up from the bottom where they could hear it, louder and louder, their tympani aching already, and it went louder, higher—

The dark thing dropped to the ground, spewing steam, and bounced once. The one over to the right flipped into the air, spun, turned, lay still and smoking.

The Sparky went down to a spewing glow, no worse than one of the Fuel-pocket fires the miners dealt with all the time.

The sky came back, dark. Their eyes adjusted to the light from the dark red sun on the other side of the Settlement. The dim stars hung in the east, beyond the glowing remnants of the Sparky.

The Fuel-miners and workers ran out, avoiding the smoking dark things, which gave off a bad smell, as when the lichen is cooked too long, and shoveled more black stuff on the slabs.

“Hee-hee-hee!” came the thin voice of Grandfather Bugg from the highest part of the Settlement. “Couldn’t have done it better myself! Wouldn’t have missed it for the world!”

“Well done, my people,” said the Leader, readjusting her Fuel-miner’s suit. “That’s what hard work gets you.”

Doers Tola and Sima had their antennules together. Lala heard them making preparations to fight Sparkies in advance so they wouldn’t have to go through all this if it happened again.

Then she realized how tired and hurt she was, and how much she ached. She walked toward the Settlement.

As she was passing through the gate, Grandfather Bugg bent forward from his chair and said, “Say, little Missy. Lookin’ good today. Tckh-tckh-tckh!”

She stood on the same high building later, looking at the east, at the dark sky and stars. Her shadow stretched before her as it should.

It seemed as if all those things had happened in a resting-phase.

She looked at the site of the Sparky, now a huge pile of black crumbly boulders. Barely a flicker of light came out, no more than from the walls of any room.

Her side still hurt from the battering she had taken, and her left eye had lost most of its focus.

The places where the dark things had lain for a time were empty, except for the charred remnants of the coverings. Doer Tola had some of them in her workshop to examine.

Lala reached under her jacket and scratched her right side knob.

From somewhere far back out in the Cold World came the howling of the roachpack.

Content

Scientifiction
by Howard Waldrop