Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Two Years Later
Q uiggs’s obsession with his hot air balloon infuriated Rosamunde, widening the rift between them. She had orchards of sputternuts and a warehouse filled with tubs of fuel paste. She had completed her part of their agreement. Where was the combustion valve to complete his steam engine for boats? If he killed himself, the invention died with him, and she was stuck with a glut of fuel paste.
Actually, Quiggs had solved the valve’s design a month after signing his marriage contract. Because the First Family had never apologized for torturing Beau, Quiggs had hidden the design and devoted his time to perfecting his balloon’s furnace instead. Rosamunde and her parents deserved the angst.
Odd how Quiggs had never experienced a single flutter at the thought of flying, yet the thought of his marriage bed churned his stomach. If his balloon exploded and he fell to his death, let it be before he graduated in four months. With the knowledge his wife would be as furious and frustrated with him for the rest of her life as he was with her and her family for the last two years, his last moment would be happy .
Beau’s sulks began at the start of Quiggs’s senior year. His little friend whined whenever reminded that their days as roommates permanently ended after graduation. He didn’t want to live at the academy without his Quiggs and didn’t want to move into the apartments where the herders lived. He was unhappy and scared until Quiggs tried a different tactic. He explained to Beau how having privacy was the only way Rosamunde would agree to have children. Didn’t Beau want to be called Uncle Beau? Beau could rent an apartment across the hall from the married couple.
Becoming an uncle thrilled Beau. He couldn’t wait to stroll Quiggs’s babies around the city and show them how to feed goats and tame sucker-toes for pets. He bragged about paying a tailor for a proper suit to wear to the official marriage ceremony and chortled at how surprised the guests would be to see him suited up.
Yeah, Rosamunde’s reaction would be priceless. She wasn’t sending him an invitation.
Despite his fear of female plumbing, Quiggs didn’t intend to kill himself flying his balloon. He was the Academic Champion and had never confronted a problem he couldn’t figure out. His gorgeous six-paneled red balloon was almost ready to launch.
This morning, he shoved aside thoughts of his impending marriage and continued a meticulous series of tests to measure lift versus fuel intake with the balloon safely tethered to the floor of the work tower. After climbing inside the basket, he pulled on a pair of fire-proof gloves and opened the fuel valve of the compact furnace suspended from the mouth of the balloon. The intense blue-white flame shot up, lifting the balloon’s upper third through the opened roof, and the basket vibrated beneath Quiggs’s feet, straining against the tethers.
“Moves like a glans through a slick channel,” Witters called up to him.
Yeah, it did. A series of snaps stopped Quiggs’s laughter—the tethers had broken. Before he reached the control lines to pop the top for a rapid-deflate, the glans soared through the opened roof with a speed that knocked him to the floor. Without a harness and leader line for balance, he slid a hand through one of the safety loops around the sides of basket and held tightly until the rocking slowed.
He felt one exhilarating moment of flight. But all things going up went down, and he hadn’t outfitted his hot air balloon for a launch, much less a hard landing. No handling lines, no rotation vents, no way of knowing if the balloon—which wasn’t fully inflated—could lift the basket above the rampart when it drifted beyond the city.
An air current caught the balloon and lifted it. The basket steadied, and he stood, sliding his feet into the bottom loops and grasping the rail with both hands. The city appeared tiny and isolated directly below. The wind direction drifted him northeast into the vines, which would cushion his landing. He closed the valve to the furnace, then worked the lines to pop the top vent. The air rushed out. Instead of a mad downward spiral, the balloon descended gracefully in a calm wind.
Disaster averted, Quiggs rested his elbows on the rail, both feet anchored in safety loops. Witters and Meek would have a rescue team on the way, and the archers in the watchtowers along the canal would easily track his descent. He would dismantle his balloon and transport it back to Port Memphis for improvements before the next test.
He watched the vines getting closer, the canopy dense. A strong gust swung the balloon around, and it dropped rapidly. Instead of vines, he saw murky water ahead.
Hundreds and hundreds of miles of cushiony vines for a landing, but Quiggs splashed down in the middle of the most treacherous section of the canal between Port Memphis and Port Paducah—where the fins spawned each spring.
The basket sank like a stone, leaving Quiggs neck-deep in the water. The balloon floated behind in the canal instead of on land where it could be recovered. When he realized he was sinking, he had a moment of disbelief before he unhooked his feet from the safety loops and swam ashore, his strokes frantic as scaly bodies brushed his legs. At any instant, he expected to feel his flailing legs bitten off or his belly sliced by rows of triangular teeth. He reached the smooth lip of the bank and hoisted himself out, rolling blindly until he tangled himself in the vines.
Well, fuck. It figured he’d swim toward the right bank into the outland instead of the left bank and the mainland. But he was alive, skin and bones intact.
He got to his knees and watched the churning water as the fins attacked the bright red balloon, mistaking it for bleeding flesh. Fins reached eight feet in length and fed on eels. For a change of diet, they used their short, clawed forelegs to climb up the banks and snag passing goats or humans.
His wonderful balloon was being eaten.
A raft of excited herders picked him up minutes later.
The week after his accidental launch, Quiggs noticed new changes in Beau. He moved slowly as if his joints ached. He slept later, retired earlier. He clapped his hands over his ears when Quiggs asked questions. He hid when the symptoms worsened, and Quiggs begged him to visit Dr. Keith.
When patches of Beau’s white-blond hair fell out, Quiggs did what he had to. He faked a stomachache, bending over and moaning. Scared, Beau rushed him to the hospital. Once they were inside the exam room, Quiggs straightened and snapped at Beau to hop on the table and shut up about it. They weren’t leaving the room until the doctors examined him.
Watching Beau submit without a yowl, Quiggs knew something was seriously wrong. His stomach cramped for real.
After the exam, the team of doctors led by Dr. Keith gently explained what Quiggs had always avoided by hiding it behind a stone wall of denial. Beau’s body was shutting down. Failure to transition led to early death. Soon, Beau would disappear, like the animal he was, to seek a quiet place to die.
Beau’s big green eyes gazed at Quiggs, who was sniffling back tears. “Don’t cry, my Quiggs. Don’t cry. I always know this bad happens. This why I leave my den. My family kills weak males.”
Quiggs held Beau’s thin body close to his in bed that night. “Promise me you won’t hide when it’s… when it’s your time. Don’t wander off and die alone.”
“I not run away. Promise.” Beau snuggled closer, burying his face against Quiggs’s shoulder. Quiggs heard a tiny sniffle. He stroked Beau’s back. “It’s okay to be scared.”
“Not scared. I sad I never be Uncle Beau.”
“If I have a son, I’ll name him Beau.” Quiggs meant it.
“Ros-a-munde will yell at you.”
Quiggs snickered. “Yeah, she will.”
It was the last joke shared. The following morning, Beau led his herd of eight goats across the south side’s drawbridge into the vines and vanished.
The herders searched two days before giving up. From the city’s balustrade, Quiggs watched the sky for signs of carrion feeders. He hoped Beau died in a peaceful sleep surrounded by his herd.
Rosamunde sent a letter to his work tower on the fourth day, expressing shallow condolences along with a fervent reminder not to slake his grief with a binge of sweets, or the marriage vest she’d ordered wouldn’t fasten over his stomach.
Quiggs pitched the letter in a waste bin and sat at his work table surrounded by yards of red material needing fire-proofing before he sewed them into panels. He unwrapped a sandwich piled with spicy slices of goat and slathered with soft cheese.
Fuck his fancy vest. He’d lost his best friend. He wasn’t losing bread .
“Cadet Quiggs Fallon?” The lean sun-weathered man striding toward him wore the scarlet shirt and blue knee-length shorts of a master herder.
“Yes?” Quiggs braced for the worst.
“I am Brooke, sir. We found Beau. The local guild voted to let you see him before we put him down. They wanted you to understand why. Follow me, please.”
The herder sounded as if Beau were an animal. His little friend deserved gentle handling.
Quiggs stuffed his sandwich inside the pocket of his black pants. For four days, he’d grieved how Beau had wandered off to die alone. His throat too tight to ask questions, he followed Brooke outside, struggling to keep up with the herder’s lengthy strides.
Brooke led him toward the east side, where underground passageways led to a network of caves with boiling springs. The colonists piped the steam and water to the kitchens, baths, and laundries. The doctors had suggested Beau would require the warmth of the underground steam baths as his organs shut down.
Storefronts had lowered their awnings and placed closed signs on their doors. Where was the mid-day foot traffic? A herald rushed past Quiggs, scribbling on a slate as he ran,
Brooke bypassed the side street to the bathhouses and rounded the corner toward the jail. Here citizens packed the street. Six policemen in dark blue uniforms and helmets formed a barricade in front of the tunnel to the jailhouse, wielding their batons as they yelled at citizens to stand back and wait for an opening.
A herder walked back and forth in front of the barricade, jangling a bulging bag.
“Two credits to see the feral! No passes, everyone pays!”
Quiggs grabbed Brooke’s shoulder. “Stop this! Beau’s a master herder. He deserves to die with dignity in a hospital.”
Brooke spat on the ground. “Best you accept the creature inside the jail cell isn’t our Beau any more. He’s in transition.”
“Beau can’t transition! ”
“No mistaking it’s Beau we found. A herder spotted a flock of carrion feeders circling a storage shed near the outbank. A team of volunteers, me included, armed ourselves and checked it out. We dragged Beau from a burrow he’d dug beneath the shed. He was sleeping like he was drugged and throwing off heat like a furnace. His belly was bloated from the goats he’d eaten. Never would have found him if he hadn’t tossed out the entrails. Probably bait to catch more food.”
“Beau would never harm—he loves his goats. He names them!”
Brooke’s eyes hardened. “We identified the collars. The goats belonged to Beau.”
Quiggs steeled himself to speak the awful truth. “The feral you dragged out… it must have eaten Beau too.”
“Your Beau is that goddammed feral. I wanted to kill him while he slept, but the others voted to bring him back alive. Medical’s never studied a live one during its transition. The thing woke up and sprouted the longest claws I’ve ever seen. He kicked out the sides of the cage and bit through the ropes. We jabbed him with poisoned stakes to kill him. Fucker’s body kept oozing out the poison like pus from a wound. We jabbed him over and over to keep him weak while we hauled him on a stretcher to the jail. It’s the only place with bars to hold him.”
Beau had claws? Quiggs had slept with him the night before he disappeared. If Beau had transitioned during the night, would Quiggs have met the same fate as the goats? No, impossible. The captured feral had killed and eaten Beau, who’d died defending his herd.
“If it’s Beau, he would have asked for me. And Beau yowls when he’s unhappy.”
Brooke let a crack of laughter through his yellowed teeth. “He can’t speak. Just keeps growling and throwing himself at the jail bars to get at anyone coming close to stare at him. Damn scary sight when he swipes his claws through the bars like he’d enjoy gutting you.”
Quiggs struggled to connect the creature described with his goofish little friend .
Brooke tapped his herding staff on Quiggs’s head to snap him out of his shock. “After you get a look at what he is, we’re exterminating him and sending the body to medical for dissection.”
If this feral ate Beau, Quiggs would deliver the death blow himself.
Brooke cleared a path with his staff. “Make way for Cadet Quiggs Fallon! I got Cadet Quiggs Fallon here!”
The policemen lowered their batons and let them pass. The smell of putrid flesh saturated the humid air inside the downward tunnel, like something vile from the bottom of the canal had been dragged this way. Quiggs buried his nose in the crook of his arm and wove through the jammed tunnel behind Brooke. When his shouting couldn’t be heard over the deafening ruckus, the herder used his staff to clear a path.
The jail was a simple facility with three cells and a booking office. The large holding cell was at the end of the tunnel on the left. The three sides of metal bars offered no privacy from leering visitors. To the right, down the hall from the holding cell, were the office and two enclosed solitary cells for serious offenders. Any man guilty of a serious crime met a swift execution. For infractions, a man paid his fine and was released. If he couldn’t pay the fine, he serviced clients in the rental rooms until the debt was paid.
At the bottom of the tunnel, a jailor warned visitors to stay behind the yellow line, away from the bars. “He snags you with his claws, he’ll pull you through the bars easy as water through a sieve.”
Brooke’s staff connected with the broad back of a bargeman blocking them, and a brawl erupted. When Quiggs squeezed sideways around Brooke, impatient to reach the cell, another bargeman grabbed his braid and hauled him back.
“Get back to the end of the line, whelp!”
He swung a meaty fist at Quiggs’s jaw, pulling back at the last instant when he recognized only one person owned a braid below the knees. His fleshy face paled. “Oh, fuck. It’s you. Sorry. ”
Others recognized Quiggs and raised their arms shouting, “Pass him overhead!”
Hands hoisted Quiggs passing him along like a sack of flour until he dropped breathless on his feet in front of the cell. He glanced down, alarmed he’d landed over the yellow line. Fighting broke out behind him as men shoved each other to get a closer view of Quiggs’s reaction. A surge in the crowd knocked him face-forward against the bars and squashed him there. The stench from inside the cell folded over him like a coat of muck.
Then everything faded—the crushing pressure, the fighting, the stench—when he stared through the bars.
His first thought was absolutely not Beau.
The creature squatting at the back of the cell, with its long stringy arms wrapped around its chest, bore no resemblance to his little friend. Its gray skin was rotting. Shriveled strips of the stuff littered the floor along with stones thrown through the bars. The stench came from the yellow fluids oozing from the lacerations covering its body.
The pathetic creature lifted its head, sniffing the air. Pale green eyes pinned Quiggs like a predator sighting a juicy hare.
No way this was Beau. Beau’s eyes regarded the world with a trusting innocence, and Beau had a funny lopsided head. This thing had a strong neck supporting a head that had not yet transitioned into the elongated skull and sloped forehead of its kind. Its lean jaw hung crooked from transitioning as if a brutal kick had knocked it off its hinges.
As a violent shudder passed through it, the tendons in its neck strained. The shoulders visibly broadened. The skin stretched, then split over a new layer of raw muscle growth, and more yellow fluids oozed out. The growth spurt left the feral panting. Its arms dropped to its sides, revealing the outline of a heart fluttering inside an unformed ribcage. One thrust of a spear, one stone hurled, and the vulnerable heart would burst.
The feral crossed its bony arms over its chest and slowly, jerkily got to its feet. So skeletal, so fragile, it stood a bit shy of seven feet, short for a full-blooded feral. Someone threw a stone at its shoulder. A growl rumbled in its throat, and its upper lip curled back revealing gleaming white teeth. It hadn’t grown fangs. Its ears were rounded and tight against its skull, not pointed and protruding.
With a distance and speed it shouldn’t have managed given its suffering body, the feral leaped from the back of the cell to the bars. Its arms reached through, one encircling Quiggs’s neck, the other his waist. It held Quiggs in a bruising grip against the bars, dangling his feet off the floor and squishing the last breath out of him.
Screams rang out as the feral fastened its jaws around Quiggs’s throat. Brooke shouted at the guards not to kill it, or its jaws would snap in a death reflex.
If it was this strong in a weakened state, Quiggs could only imagine the ferocity of a fully transitioned feral. He closed his eyes and fought the panic by focusing on, of all things, blocking the urge to piss his pants.
A slimy tongue swiped the hollow of his throat. As the jaws pulled away, Quiggs heard a rip and knew the sound was his throat torn out. He experienced a curious resignation at the wetness oozing down his neck. So this was how he met his end: his worst nightmare come to life, sharing the fate of his parents.
In the next ticking second, the creature leaped back, releasing him. Quiggs’s feet hit the floor, and his hands clutched the bars. As the feral devoured what he assumed was his bloody flesh, he pressed a hand over the gaping hole in his throat. Any effort to staunch the bleeding was futile. He sucked in a breath, waiting for blackness to descend.
How could he breathe without a throat?
He held up his sticky hand and saw strands of yellow fetid drool between his spread fingers. He would have gagged if he weren’t so shocked he was alive. Glancing down, he saw the pocket where he’d stuffed his sandwich had been ripped out, exposing his boxers.
Quiggs staggered back behind the yellow line, watching the feral lick crumbs off its huge hands. Another violent shudder traveled through it. The long back rippled, the skin splitting down the spine like a rotten fruit striking the ground. It braced its feet apart with its arms outstretched, absorbing the pain as instinct directed.
The ribcage closed, and a layer of muscle formed over its chest. The ripples ceased, and the feral weaved on its feet, paddle-sized befitting its great height. Its lean loose jaws broadened and clicked into place as it gazed at Quiggs. It sheathed its claws inside thick finger pads before holding out its hands for more food.
Its guttural cries sounded like, “Ka… Ka… Ka...”
Quiggs rubbed his throat, amazed the thing hadn’t pulled him through the bars and eaten him since it was starving.
Green eyes with dilated human pupils fixed on his as the feral scuffed his feet to the bars and reached out. “Ka … Ka … Ka …”
Quiggs shook his head at the entreaty. No way he was coming closer.
It sank to the floor, cross-legged, and its head drooped. The skull’s soft plates had allowed its head to squeeze through the bars and latch onto Quiggs throat. Now they began to acquire the high straight forehead… of a human. The high-bridged nose forming from slits was human. The strong brow jutting over slanting green eyes was human. The anguish pouring out of those eyes was human.
“B-Beau?” Quiggs’s voice was a bare whisper.
It looked up and held out its hands.
Quiggs pointed to himself.
It nodded and rocked. “Ka… Ka... Ka…”
Qu… Qu… Quiggs . It was trying to say his name.
Quiggs shook off the shock. This was his Beau transitioning. All the yellow oozing wasn’t good. He needed fluids and food—lots, if he was still starving after eating eight goats.
“For fuck’s sake, people, it’s Beau! The transition’s burning him up. He’s starving. Bring food and buckets of water. And someone needs to hook up a hose and spray down the cell.”
Men reached into their pockets. They tossed fruit, cheese, nuts, jerky through the bars. Beau scrambled on all fours and devoured every scrap.
Brooke stepped up beside him, careful to stay behind the yellow line. “Look at him,” Quiggs said. “He’s eating fruit. Mature ferals are strictly meat eaters.”
“He went after your neck,” Brooke reminded him.
“He swiped his tongue on my neck. That’s Beau’s way to show affection. He remembers me. I need to get inside to help him.”
When Quiggs moved toward the bars, Brooke yanked him back. “Stay behind the line. The transition’s not over.”
“I can’t stand out here and watch him suffer. He’s my friend.”
“He’s as likely to eat you as to shake your hand. We’ll keep feeding him and let the doctors study him. But don’t get attached. The law exterminates ferals.”
Quiggs studied the ears and skull. Those slanted green eyes shone with intelligence. “Look at his head. Beau’s transitioning into a human.”
“The doctors will decide what he becomes.” Brooke squinted at the prisoner. “What a waste. He was a damn fine herder when he was a runt.”