Chaos Mode

CHAPTER 4—ANOMALY

NONA was amazed. She had had no idea that Colene had such a history. No wonder the girl had such a complex array of traits. Even in the ambience of mind-sharing that Seqiro the horse provided, so much was omitted, because it didn’t come to the surface. For example, this was the first time that Colene had spoken directly of her introduction to Darius and Seqiro.

Colene was indeed depressive, and she tended to see and express things with almost painful candor. Though she addressed Nona as if she were a rival for the love of horse and man, it had been Colene herself who had asked Nona to join them on the Virtual Mode, instead of vacating her anchor and remaining in her Julia Mode. And Colene was not an inferior person. She thought her age to be a liability, but that was only in one particular culture, and in any event she would outgrow it, inevitably, in time. She thought her appearance was modest, when she was actually a lovely young woman. She thought she wasn’t nice, when in fact she had qualities Nona envied, such as intelligence, courage, and generosity. She thought she was in danger of losing the love of Darius to Nona, but Nona had no wish for that sort of relationship with a man. In fact, she had come on the Virtual Mode to escape the need to settle down, marry, have babies, and lose her magic in her home Mode. Nona wanted adventure, and when they reached Darius’ Mode, Nona hoped to remain on the Virtual Mode and continue exploring other realities. She hoped Colene would come to believe that.

By now dawn was showing, and they had to start moving. They didn’t want to sit and wait for another monstrous crab to attack. They had to get to some place that was secure from predators, so they could sleep without having crabs move in.

They consulted with Burgess, with whom Colene had established the best rapport. Increasingly the creature’s thoughts were becoming part of the mind net made by Seqiro. Burgess was alien, but he seemed to really want to communicate, which helped. He normally belonged to a hive of his kind, and needed constant interaction. Now he wanted to interact with them, and this was his right, because he was this reality’s anchor creature. Nona had so recently become part of the Virtual Mode that she appreciated its novelty and promise, and understood why any creature would desire it. She also understood the appeal of joined minds; insecurity faded and confidence increased, because of the constant support by the others. Five minds were much stronger than one.

Burgess did not think linearly, but in three-dimensional bursts of information. He was learning to squeeze it into the form they could comprehend, but Colene still had to translate. Thus his input seemed like Colene’s thoughts, and there was a slight delay while she organized it. In time that would change, and he would communicate directly, but it was all right for the interim.

“We have to stay in the wilderness,” Burgess (Colene) said (thought). “Because the floaters of my hive mean to kill me, and will kill you too, now that you have associated with me. They govern the plain by day.”

Because he had contacted the poisoned hive, and then not joined it, they thought of him as a traitor they could not trust. Nona wasn’t yet clear on this attitude, but it probably made sense in terms of their values.

“We have already experienced their hostility,” Darius said. “Fortunately we can throw rocks farther than they can.”

“But we’ll have to pass through their lines,” Colene said for herself; there was a different inflection to her thought, and of course she was also speaking verbally now.

“They’ll be massed and ready for us, and we’ll have to go well within their range. That’s no good; just that blowing sand could blind us.”

Nona agreed. She never wanted to get into one of those sandblasts again. There was nothing like that on her home world. But of course this was a different world, in a different reality, where there was no magic. She was constantly running afoul of that, expecting to shape things by magic, or to fly from one place to another, or to transform things into the materials or food she needed. She felt rather helpless, here, and looked forward to their return to the Virtual Mode, where her magic worked.

But the mind predator had attacked Colene, forcing them to flee the Virtual Mode. Colene had mentioned the predator before, because it had attacked her friend Provos when the two traveled the Virtual Mode. Now Provos had returned to her own reality, and severed her anchor, so was permanently beyond its reach. So it was coming after Colene instead. Colene believed that it would give up after a while as it had with Provos, but this was not certain. So they had reason to stay off the Virtual Mode for a few days, and then to hope that the predator was gone.

Unfortunately the big crab was still lurking; its hungry malevolence was a constant presence, because Seqiro remained attuned to it, and the rest of them could pick up that tuning. Worse, the horse was growing mentally tired, because he had been awake a long time and the continuous broadcasting of the fear was draining him. As his power weakened, the crab was losing its fear and moving closer. In time that defense would be gone.

So they decided to travel deeper into the wilderness, until the hivers lost interest. They would wait out the hivers the same way as they waited out the mind predator. They hoped to find a place where they could finally relax, where there was food and water, so that they wouldn’t have to use their carried supplies. It was always best to eat at the anchors, Nona understood, because what they ate that came from any of the worlds of the Virtual Mode would not remain with them. They had to eat only on an anchor world, or food carried from an anchor world.

But forging a level path for Burgess to float along was bound to be tedious and slow, if they had to go any distance. It would have been easier if Nona’s magic worked in this reality, but her ability to relate to a creature as a familiar was diminished, and none of the rest of her magic seemed to work at all. She felt helpless.

Then she saw something scuttle across the remains of the dirt barrier they had made. It was a multi-legged bug, with long antennae trailing to the sides. It was small enough to hold in one hand, but moved very quickly.

She had an idea. “Seqiro, stun me this creature,” she said.

The horse oriented his powerful thought on the creature, for just a moment, and the bug stopped where it was, stunned. Seqiro had not been able to relate well to Burgess at first, but had done better as he tuned in, and now contact was good, if Colene was there to interpret. This bug had a much smaller mind, and was easier for the horse to overwhelm. As he learned to relate to the minds of Burgess and the crab, he learned to relate to all the minds of this reality, to a degree.

Nona nerved herself, and picked the thing up. It had four bony extensions extending back from its head that shielded its body; it was by this armor she handled it. She set it in her other hand and held it close to her face. It seemed to have about twenty-five pairs of legs, the largest to the front, diminishing to tiny at the rear. Each leg had six jointed segments. There turned out to be four antennae: two were very long and smooth and flexible, while the other two were shorter and furry. Between the legs and the bony shield projections were weblike lines. What could they be?

Well, perhaps she could find out. She focused her mind, reaching into the mind of the bug and seeking to tame it. She hoped to make it a familiar. It was working; that part of her magic was working. She had doubted, when facing the challenge of trying to relate to Burgess, but with this smaller-minded creature she was having no more difficulty than she would have at home with an ordinary bug.

Colene came over to see what she was doing. “Ooo, ugh!” she said. “You’re holding a fat six-inch-long centipede!”

“I’m taming it,” Nona explained. “It moves very quickly. Perhaps it can explore the way for us, and warn us of danger ahead.”

“Good idea,” Colene agreed. She bent to look more closely. “Say—that’s biramous! See, each segment has a pair of legs and a pair of gills. In fact—in fact it’s Marrella! Or his distant descendant, adapted to land. I’ll never forget that arthropod, after that session with Amos.”

“Gills?” Darius asked, getting interested. “Do they work in air?”

Colene returned to the floater and touched a contact point. Burgess’ thought came: “The creatures with external gills do use them in air. My gills are protected under my canopy, drawing nourishment from the air with which I float. Marrella does not float, but does use its gills to breathe and to enhance its travel.”

Nona remembered the discussion of uniramous, biramaus, and triramous. “It travels with its gills?”

“It moves them to enhance the take-up of what you call—” Burgess hesitated, then continued when another mind supplied the concept. “Oxygen. When it is in a hurry, this movement of the gills also enables it to be lighter and faster on its feet. It can not float in the manner I do, but perhaps some millions of years hence it will evolve to that degree.”

“Gills becoming wings,” Colene murmured, intrigued. “I guess it wasn’t just the triramous line that survived, here; Mary Marrella didn’t leave any descendants in my world.”

Nona set Marrella down. “It is my familiar now,” she said. “It will be my antenna, and show me the best route.”

“That would be good, if I could conjure us to the safe spots it locates,” Darius said. “As we did in Julia, your reality. But I can not, here in Shale.”

“And it would be nice if I could fly, here,” Nona agreed. “But my magic is almost as diminished as yours.”

“Sometimes I feel lucky I don’t have magic,” Colene said. “At least Seqiro’s talent is full-strength, here, so we can coordinate.”

“Yes,” Nona agreed. “Seqiro helped me get Marrella.” She glanced down. “Go, friend. Spy the way.”

Marrella shot off into the forest, its legs moving at blurring velocity, its gills buzzing. It scooted over the dirt, stirring up a little cloud, and under twigs and leaves. Its body armor knocked obstructions out of its way.

It was not fleeing. It was moving under Nona’s direction. It was her familiar, and its senses served her mind. It had no eyes or ears, but its antennae picked up the vibrations in the air, and the smells. This provided it with an excellent awareness of its surroundings, which Nona tried to translate into a mental picture. But the needs of Marrella and the needs of the party did not match, and the picture was so foggy as to be useless.

“Maybe if Seqiro routed Mary’s impressions through to Burgess, he could shape them up for us better,” Colene suggested. “Because he understands this world.”

Seqiro connected Marrella’s awareness to Burgess’ mind, via Colene’s. Burgess had both hearing and sight, so understood the need. He translated the foggy sound/smell picture into a clearer sight picture for them all.

Now Darius and Colene saw the scene as Nona saw it. The ground was passing rapidly under the fifty-two little feet, and the various smaller bugs, worms, and roots that Marrella fed on were all around. None of the predators Marrella feared were close, because Marrella was staying well out of their way. There was a gentle wind, bringing news of the plants and animals upwind, shaping a picture of some depth.

There was a thick tangle of vegetation near the party, but the giant crab had forged a partial channel through it. Beyond was an aisle formed by a huge tree which had crashed down and rolled to the side. Beyond that was deeper forest where the undergrowth was slight. And beyond that was water.

“I think we’ve found a way through,” Colene said. “We just have to get Burgess to that aisle, and he’ll be fine.”

Darius looked at the crab’s trail. “This is good enough for us to use, but it would take a lot of work to make it level enough for Burgess.”

“Why make it level? Just carry him over.”

Darius considered. “Pick him up? He must weigh four hundred pounds!” He used Colene’s system of weights.

“You take one end, Nona and I take the other, and he lightens himself as much as he can with his air cushion. It’ll work, for a few feet. Seqiro can strengthen us for the occasion, too.”

Burgess was alarmed. “Lift me? This has never been done.”

“You never became an anchor for a Virtual Mode before, either,” she reminded him. “You can keep your canopy stiff enough to bear your weight?”

“I do this whenever I settle on the ground. My canopy is formed of what in earlier creatures were legs, with my gills now under my body and my contact points above. But I have always lifted myself on air.”

“Except that you can’t rise more than maybe an inch,” Colene said. “We can heave you up maybe three feet, to get you over that brush and root tangle. Once you’re over, you’ll be on level ground again.”

Nona felt Burgess’ doubt. She searched for a suitable analogy, and found it: she would have similar doubt if alien creatures proposed to carry her by her breasts and knees.

Colene laughed, “Well, you have better handles than I do!” she said. Then she had to pause to explain that to Burgess. “We girls don’t like to have our breasts touched, unless we decide it’s okay. Or even other parts of our bodies. But men keep trying to do it. It’s a bad scene.”

Burgess concluded that the aliens understood his situation. He agreed to be carried.

They rehearsed it with a heavy branch, tramping along the ragged path to the aisle beyond. They set the branch carefully down. Everything seemed to be in order.

They approached Burgess. Darius put his hands on two of the floater’s front canopy-scales, and Colene and Nona did the same with the rear scales. They were bone-hard and smooth, easy enough to grip. But could Darius actually heave up two hundred pounds, and each woman one hundred?

Then strength surged through Nona’s body. She heaved, and the body came up. The three of them were perfectly coordinated. They marched in step along the path, then set Burgess down in the aisle.

Nona’s surge of strength left her as she let go. “What happened?” she asked, amazed.

“Seqiro governed us,” Colene said. “He can make a person very fast and strong, for a while, and he made us all act in synchromesh. It’s part of his telepathy. He’s used to managing our kind.”

“Then next time we have to fight off any predators, he must do it again,” Nona said, impressed.

“Say! Good idea.”

But something huge loomed ahead of them, now. “The crab’s back!” Darius cried.

Indeed it was. The thing looked worse by daylight than it had at night. It had fresh scars and a missing antenna, but its huge claw remained devastatingly functional.

“Because poor Seqiro can’t fend it off when he has to concentrate on stunning Mary, or rerouting Mary’s impressions through Burgess, or giving us temporary strength,” Colene said. “Gee, I’m sorry, horsehead; I just tend to think of you as all-powerful.”

For you, I try, Seqiro answered her in pure thought. But I am near the end of my resource.

Colene looked at the crab barring their way. “Well, we’ve just got to help you out. Darius, can you advance threateningly on the thing, while Seqiro gives it a little bit of fear? Maybe the combination will make it think it’s more afraid than it is, and it’ll back off again.”

Darius took his axe and strode forward. “Hoo-hah!” he yelled loudly. At that moment Seqiro sent a terrible jolt of fear that made Nona wince, until she realized that it was actually Darius’ yell that accounted for much of the effect.

The crab scuttled back, and in a moment was gone. They heard the noises of its retreat. The ploy had been effective.

“Now ease up, Seqiro,” Colene said. “Conserve your strength. It should be a while before the stupid thing realizes that it’s not scared any more.”

Nona knew that she herself would not have thought of that device to spare the horse. She envied Colene’s practical sense.

Colene glanced at her. “I’d trade you for some of your measurements.”

“You would be foolish to do so, and you aren’t foolish.” Then they both laughed.

Now they were on their way. Burgess pumped up his air and floated along the aisle, and the others followed. Soon they were in the deeper forest, and had no further difficulty.

Marrella was waiting at the bank of the lake, hiding under some brush. Nona would never have been able to find it, if she had not had mental contact.

The lake itself was wide. It extended to the sides, Burgess indicated, until it intersected the plains where the hivers lurked, effectively isolating this section of the wilderness. Burgess knew that the greatest part of the wilderness lay beyond the lake; they could traverse much of the continent without leaving it. The crabs were not there, as far as Burgess knew; apparently they preferred the isolated niches. He floated out on the water, dipping his intake trunk for a drink.

But how were they to cross the lake? They could swim, but it was a fair distance, and Nona hesitated to trust unknown water. Something else bothered her, and she chased it down, in case it was important. Then she had it: “The floaters,” she said. “Why aren’t they on the water, cutting us off?”

That triggered a memory in Burgess. “The water predator! We can not cross that water.”

Colene focused on him. “We have to cross, Burgess. Because Seqiro can’t stay awake forever, fending off the crab. What’s with this predator, that the whole hive stays off this water?”

Burgess made a picture of a huge, flat swimming creature with tentacles in front, eyes on the sides, and a circular mouth below. “That’s Anomalocaris!” Colene exclaimed. “What’s it doing here in the present?”

“The same thing Marrella is,” Nona said.

Colene nodded. “So several of those early lines carried through, instead of just one. Of course they really aren’t the same as the Cambrian creatures, any more than we’re the same as the first chordate. But we can see the family affinities. I’ll just bet we don’t want to meet up with a modern Anomaly the size of a horse. No offense, Seqiro.”

“We don’t want to swim here, certainly,” Darius said. “But if we try to go around the lake, we’ll have to cross a section of the plain. Perhaps if we wait until night—”

“We’ll have to rest and sleep before then,” Colene said. “Seqiro can’t go forever on alert. He feels more crabs lurking already.”

“Suppose we build a raft?” Nona asked. “If we make it solid enough, it should be proof against attack from the water. Perhaps, also, Seqiro will be able to send fear to the water predator.”

“Worth a try,” Colene agreed. “I’m tired, and I guess everyone else is too, but maybe we can drag stuff out from the forest and lash together a raft.”

Darius lifted a hand in a no-way gesture. “A raft sufficient to support a horse? That’s an all-day project at least. Ask Seqiro how he’d like to stand on vine-lashed logs, too. What’s good enough footing for a human being may not do at all for hooves.”

Colene didn’t need to; the horse was already sending a strong disaster signal. “But then what can we make?” Colene asked. “There must be something. Something simple, easy, fast, and strong. I hope.” But her accompanying mood was depressive; she knew there was nothing like that available.

There was a stirring in the forest behind them. There was the crab again. “Okay, all together, now,” Colene said. “On three. One—two—THREE!”

Darius and Nona joined her in the shout, while Burgess fired a stone at the crab. The jolt of fear was weaker this time; Nona realized that Seqiro had not been exaggerating about the exhaustion of his mental resource. He had to get some rest.

The crab retreated again, but not as far as before.

“If only my magic worked, I could make a boat,” Nona said. “Just by transforming material.”

Colene pounced on that. “Some of your magic works, Nona! You made a familiar. So maybe some of your other magic works, too. Did you try all of it?”

“Yes. I tried levitation, telekinesis, transformation, shape-changing, and illusion. The illusion was just a bit of fog, with no control. I haven’t tried healing, because nobody’s been hurt, but—”

Colene held up her left arm. There were scars on her wrist. “See if you can heal my scars.”

That was a good way to test it, because Nona’s magic did work on scars too. She took the girl’s arm in her hands and concentrated. She knew right away that it wasn’t working, but she kept trying, just in case.

Colene glanced at her wrist. “No good, huh? Too bad. And that’s all your magic?”

“No it’s not,” Darius said. “You can change the size of things, too. Remember how you expanded the size of that dulcimer?”

“Why so I did!” Nona agreed, remembering. “That’s so recent, I had forgotten.” She paused, realizing how odd that sounded. “I mean, it’s magic I didn’t know I had, and so I tend still to think I don’t. Let me try.”

She picked up a twig of wood and concentrated. In a moment it expanded. It was working! She continued to focus on it, to be sure that there was no limit to this aspect of her magic, and it became so large she had to set it down. With the magic, its mass increased in proportion to its size. Still it grew, until it was a log, and then a large log, and then a veritable fallen tree trunk.

“You know something,” Colene said. “That could make a barrier to hold back Crabface, there.”

“But there’s plenty of wood here anyway,” Nona said, giving up. The trunk did not shrink; it remained as she had left it.

“Yes, but your talent should work on other things too,” Darius said. “Such as a model boat.”

Of course! She had overlooked the obvious. Darius was already carving on another piece of wood. He hollowed it out, then flattened the bottom, and thinned the sides. Soon he had a tiny flat-bottomed model boat. “Is this seaworthy?” he inquired.

Colene laughed. “Better carve a keel on it. And make oars or paddles, so we can move it across the water. I don’t think we’re experienced enough to handle a sail. But maybe we should have a net, too, so we can dip for fish.”

Darius made the keel adjustment, then carved several tiny paddles and poles. He set them in the boat.

Nona dug out her handkerchief. “This will make a net, when expanded.” She cut out a tiny swatch of the material, and set it in the boat with the other artifacts.

Then she took the model and set it at the edge of the water. She concentrated on expanding it, and it started to grow. Soon it was large enough for one person to get into, so she shoved it further into the water. When it was full size, it might be too heavy for them to move, and she didn’t want to have to shrink it again so they could launch it. How fortunate that this one other aspect of her magic worked, here.

But she did wonder about that. In the Julia Mode there was a current of power on which the magic drew, because no person could provide the enormous energy needed to do something like this. Was there a similar power current here in Shale, though the creatures here did not seem to have magic of their own? If so, why was it available for only two of her several types of magic? That seemed to suggest that there was some other factor operating.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Colene said, responding to that thought. Then, again: “No offense, Seqiro,” She seemed to like teasing the horse, and the horse liked her teasing; Nona could feel the currents of good feeling passing between them. Seqiro shared his mind with everyone, but Colene was his truest friend.

“There are sources of power in my reality, too,” Darius said. “And some of my magic worked in Julia, and some did not. The same was true in the DoOon Mode. There must be natural power flowing through these realities, or perhaps some trace coming through the anchors, so that parts of our magic are operative. If we understood more about the Virtual Mode, we might be able to predict how our abilities would be affected.”

“Yes, Seqiro’s telepathy seems to work everywhere,” Colene said. “But it was diminished in Julia. Meanwhile I started to get a little bit of telepathy, maybe, in DoOon, and more in Julia, so maybe a Mode can enable a person to have power or magic she doesn’t have at home. Maybe the magic current in Julia is polarized, so it works only one way or the other, while in the other Modes it’s natural, so it’s not as strong for Nona but more general.” She looked at the boat, which was now huge. “Anyway, I’m glad Nona hung on to that type of magic, because it sure makes it easier to cross this lake.”

The crab was approaching again. “Look out, Seqiro!” Nona cried, for the horse was closest to the crab and facing away.

“Say,” Colene said. “You’re mentally tired, Seqiro, but not physically tired, right? Suppose you kick the crab in the snoot?”

Tell me when, the horse replied.

They watched as the crab came up behind Seqiro, lifting its huge claw to clamp on the horse’s rear. The claw seemed almost as big as the horse, but this was deceptive, because it was narrow in cross section.

“Now!” Colene cried/thought.

Seqiro kicked hard with both hind feet. One hoof struck the side of the claw, knocking it away and perhaps cracking it. The crab scuttled back again.

“All right!” Colene exclaimed happily. ”That’ll give it something to think about for a while.”

Meanwhile, the boat continued to grow. At last it was large enough for everything. In fact, Nona was concerned that they would not be able to move its mass across the water. She consulted, then reversed her concentration and made it slightly smaller.

Darius stepped aboard first. He picked up a paddle. “Ooof!” he exclaimed.

No wonder! The paddle was monstrous. They would not be able to use such tools effectively; each one would weigh more than the person wielding it. Darius, working with a tiny model, had misjudged the scale.

“I can fix it,” Nona said. She stepped onto the boat, put her hand on the huge paddle, and concentrated. It diminished, until it was of about the right size. She did the same with the other paddles, and with the poles. She saw that at this scale they were crudely carved, as was the boat; the magnification exaggerated everything. But everything was serviceable, which was what counted. Except for the swatch of handkerchief cloth, which was now like a net fashioned of ropes. It wouldn’t be much good for catching fish.

Colene led Seqiro onto the boat. Nona was surprised by that, but Colene’s thought clarified it: the horse was attuned to their minds, but tricky things like stepping over the gunwale onto a shifting deck could be troublesome. So Colene led him, guiding him, so that her senses rather than his prevailed, and he handled it without stumbling.

Then it was Burgess’ turn. He floated across the water to the side of the boat; then Darius got out and stood in the shallow water to lift one side, while Nona and Colene reached over the gunwale. Seqiro took over their minds, and with great strength and perfect coordination they heaved Burgess over and onto the deck. Burgess pumped air as they let him go, and floated to the rear center of the craft.

Now Darius and Nona poled off, and the boat slid into deeper water and floated. “Uh-oh,” Colene said.

Nona looked. Crevices that had been invisible in the model now showed clearly; they too had been magnified in proportion. Water was leaking in to flow across the bottom between the horse and the floater.

“What we need is a bilge bucket,” Darius said.

Nona set down her pole and fetched a cup from a pack Seqiro carried. She magnified this until it was the size of a pail. Colene took it and began dipping and tossing. The leakage was not extreme, and she was able to keep up well enough.

As they got into deeper water, Darius took up a paddle, and Nona took another. They stood at opposite sides of the clumsy craft and stroked the water. Slowly the boat moved forward.

“Well, we’re on our way,” Colene said. She glanced at Nona. “What happened to Mary?”

“Oh, Marrella? I let it go. It wouldn’t be happy across the water. Perhaps I can tame a new familiar on the other side.”

As they got toward the center, their boat’s motion became imperceptible, but they kept paddling. Unless there was an adverse current, they were surely forging toward the other shore.

She looked back. There where they had been was the huge crab, Seqiro had stopped sending it the fear, and it had evidently discovered that they had been mostly bluffing it, so it had come after them immediately. But it was a land crab, and could not pursue them in the lake.

Predatory presence. That was Seqiro’s thought, which Nona preferred to hear as speech though it really wasn’t. There were aspects of danger, concern, warning, and mystery: something large and menacing.

“The big crab?” Colene asked.

“No. In the water.”

Then Nona saw it. A huge flat thing was gliding close. An eye on the head part gazed at them. She and Darius ceased paddling.

The Anomalocaris. That was Burgess’ thought. The creature did not know what the boat was, Burgess concluded.

“Well, let’s hope Anomaly doesn’t find out,” Colene said, pausing in her bilge bailing.

Nona stared at the thing. The eye stared back at her. “Do you think our paddling will disturb it?” she asked.

“If we don’t paddle, we won’t get across,” Darius said. He put his paddle back in the water.

Reluctantly, Nona did the same. The end of her paddle was close to the glistening hide of the creature. She moved the paddle through the water, stirring up a ripple.

The creature oriented on the paddle. Suddenly a nose-tentacle hooked onto the paddle, wrenching it out of Nona’s hands. The end of it disappeared under the Anomaly, and there was a crunching sound. Then fragments of the paddle floated up around the head.

Darius studied the situation. “I think we aren’t going to get far, poking at this thing. But if it won’t let us paddle, how are we going to get on across the lake?”

It would be best not to provoke it. That was Burgess again. It preyed on anything in or on the water. It was once a bottom feeder, but it had adapted to consume surface creatures too. Burgess thought it could not harm this craft, but it could surely harm the living creatures.

Darius considered further. “Nona, can you grow something big enough to block it off from us, so we can paddle?”

Nona reached over the gunwale and caught a floating chip from her former paddle. She concentrated, and it grew.

But the lake monster didn’t wait. It shoved its nose up over the gunwale. The two tentacles cast across the deck. Each was segmented, with a spine projecting from each segment. It was evident that these tentacles didn’t grasp, they stuck, holding the prey with many hooked barbs.

“Get to the far side,” Darius said tersely. Nona retreated, with Colene, standing next to Seqiro and Burgess.

Darius fetched his axe. He was a handsome man as he stood there facing the monster, in his green tunic from the Julia Mode, and boots she had made magically for him before they set out on the Virtual Mode. He was, in the fashion of men, determined to defend the women and animals against the common threat. There was something almost quaint about it.

“You bet,” Colene murmured.

Animals? That was Burgess.

“Companions,” Nona said quickly.

Nona continued to make the wood chip grow. But she wasn’t sure how to use it to block off the Anomaly, now that the creature was hooking on to the boat. Maybe try to get the monster back into the water, and then try to keep the block floating between it and the boat?

Darius stepped toward the Anomaly, eyeing its head. But the creature was eyeing him back. “Oh, I don’t like this,” Colene murmured. “That’s no lunatic monster; it’s aware”

Darius decided that the eyes would be the best targets. He swung the axe. But as he did so, the Anomaly moved its head lower, using the leverage of the mass of its body, and depressed the entire end of the boat so that water slopped over the gunwale.

Darius, caught by surprise in midswing, missed. Then the force of the missed swing pulled him off balance, and his feet slipped as water sloshed over the rim. He fell on his back. Nona screamed. Her block of wood was now so big that she was holding it against her chest with both arms, but she still didn’t know what to do with it. She felt supremely ineffective, in the midst of an ongoing disaster.

The Anomaly followed up its opportunity instantly. A tentacle slapped across Darius’ left boot. It didn’t coil; the spines dug into the mock leather and held it firmly. Then it curled in toward the head, pulling Darius with it.

Darius sat up and swung his axe at the head. But the tentacle jerked, making him miss again, and in any event he lacked leverage to make an effective strike.

Now Nona saw the monster’s mouth. It was circular, with bony plates that overlapped around the center hole. Where were the teeth?

“Pull your foot out of the boot!” Colene shouted to Darius. “Get away from that thing!”

Darius, startled by the obvious, braced his right boot against the tentacle and shoved. His left foot came out of the boot. He tried to scramble away, crablike, but was jammed against the gunwale behind him. He couldn’t retreat further, and couldn’t move to the side without risking getting snagged by a tentacle again.

The tentacle drew the boot to the mouth. The mouth irised open. The teeth showed at last: circular rows of them behind the plates. The tentacle fed the toe of the boot into the hole. The plates shifted, and the orifice became smaller. The toe of the boot was constricted.

The orifice opened again. The toe of the boot was gone. The teeth must have chewed it off while the nutcracker mouth held it.

Nona started, horrified, not knowing what to do.

“You block off its eye with the wood,” Colene told her. “I’ll get the axe.” Then, to Seqiro: “You make us fast and accurate, when.”

Numbly, Nona did as she was told. The Anomaly terrified her, and she felt naked without the main part of her magic, but she knew that something had to be done. She walked forward into the water by the monster’s head.

The tentacle threw the rest of the boot to the side. Evidently the Anomaly had concluded that it wasn’t edible. The two tentacles quivered, ready to snag something else. Darius was still stuck against the gunwale, holding the axe defensively.

Then the horse’s mind took over. Nona leaped to the side of the head and jammed her block of wood right up against the eye, blinding the monster on this side. Meanwhile Colene swooped down to take the axe from Darius’ hands. She set herself before the irising mouth and swung the axe with savage force at the base of one of the tentacles.

But the Anomaly, with uncanny prescience, flinched away, and the axe struck the impervious plates of the mouth. The tentacles whipped around and caught the head of the axe. It was clear that Darius had not been clumsy; the Anomaly had been apt.

Then the power left Nona. I am sorry, Seqiro’s thought came. I have no more strength. After that the ambience of his telepathy also faded.

Colene muttered something, but it was unintelligible. The horse was no longer translating.

A hand fell on Nona’s shoulder. She jumped, but it was Darius, who was now back on his feet. He held a knife. He pointed to the block of wood.

“The eye!” Colene said. “Stab the eye!”

The girl’s own telepathy was coming into play! Nona lowered the block, and Darius lunged over it, thrusting the knife at the eye.

And yet again the Anomaly reacted too swiftly for them. It pulled back, sliding into the water. They had repelled it—but the boat was sloshing with water, and riding low.

Colene fetched her bucket and started bailing. Nona looked around for another bucket, but there was none.

Then Burgess floated back. He dipped his intrunk in the water, pointed his outtrunk, and started pumping. The water streamed out.

Colene stopped and watched. So did the others. This was far more efficient than any effort they could make. Soon the boat was almost dry again, and riding high.

But the Anomaly was circling them. It had tried a direct frontal attack and been beaten off, so it was now more cautious, but it had not yet decided that they were not prey. This was a creature like the huge crab, with hardly more than one thing on its mind: hunger. They had barely stopped it, and they remained far from the shore. What should they do?

Nona looked at Colene. Colene looked at Darius. Nona knew what the girl was thinking: she wanted Darius to be the leader, though Colene herself, with her limited power of telepathy, was the most likely leader. Nona had seen Colene in action in her own reality of Julia, and knew that the girl was a natural fighter in her fashion. But she loved Darius, so wanted him to lead.

Darius seemed to come to the same conclusion. But it was evident that he had little notion how to proceed. He had tried to brace the monster, and Colene had had to spring to his rescue. He evidently did not feel much like a hero.

Then he got an idea. He pointed to Burgess, who was finishing up the bailout, leaving the deck clear. Burgess knew more about Anomaly than they did; he might have advice.

Colene nodded. Darius had made the decision; now she could act. She went to Burgess and put a hand on one of his contact points. Nona could not overhear their dialogue, but knew that Colene’s limited telepathy was getting through.

Unfortunately, the news seemed to be bad: Burgess had no experience fighting the Anomaly, and none in boats. All he knew was that the Anomaly would make short work of Burgess himself, if he tried to float out across the water. Nona could see that those mouth tentacles could hook on to the floater’s canopy, disrupting the flow of air, and quickly swamp him; then it would be easy to grind him up piecemeal.

Then something occurred to Nona. When she flew—Colene called it levitation—she moved across the land by magically moving some fixed object—Colene called it telekinesis. Since the object could not move, Nona did; thus she came toward or away from it, or passed beside it, using its resistance to propel herself. The process was automatic, and she seldom analyzed it. But now she realized that when she did this, she was applying what Colene called a scientific rule of action and reaction. When Nona pulled, either the object came to her or she came to it.

That was true whether she pulled magically or physically. So suppose that were done here: would a person be pulled or pushed the same way?

She went to her block of wood, which now lay at the end of the boat. She picked it up and heaved it away from her. She almost fell over. It did seem to push her the other way!

Darius looked at her, curious about what she was doing. Nona couldn’t explain to him, with the language barrier, so she went to Colene. She took the girl’s free hand. “Reaction,” she said, focusing the thought.

“Yes,” Colene replied, understanding the concept. “So what?”

“Burgess—throw water—reaction—move boat.” It was hard to convey her concept, because it was new to her.

“Yes!” Colene cried, suddenly understanding. “Burgess—when you fire things out your trunk, you get pushed back, right? So push us with water!” She made a mental picture.

Burgess floated to the back of the boat. He dipped his intrunk in the water, and fired a jet from his outrunk. The boat began to move, turning slowly around.

Colene grabbed the remaining paddle. She dragged it in the water behind the boat, and it served to steady the craft, so that instead of turning it moved forward. They were traveling toward the far shore again.

The Anomaly realized this. It swam close—and Darius drove the end of the long pole at its eye. He missed, but the monster sheered away.

Nona found a splinter of wood and concentrated on expanding it. They could have another pole, in case Anomaly crunched the existing one.

Anomaly was not so dull as to miss the implication: the prey was escaping! It circled the boat more swiftly, agitated. Then it moved away, turned, and came rapidly straight toward them.

Nona screamed warning. The monster was going to swamp them! Then it could consume what it wanted, as they floundered in the water.

There was no time to act, even if any of them had known what to do. Helplessly they watched Anomaly come at them, broadside. The creature lifted its head—then launched into the air.

Nona threw herself flat, trying to avoid being struck. The dark shape hurtled just above her.

There was a splash. Nona looked up. The Anomaly was swimming away on the other side. It had passed right over the boat!

She realized that it had misjudged, because of the boat’s low profile. It had intended to sweep one or more of them into the water, or to land across the boat and swamp it, but all the other people had been at the ends of the boat. Seqiro and Darius were at the front, Burgess and Colene at the back. But if the monster tried again, at one of the ends, it would catch one or more of them.

Colene pulled in her paddle and hurried to join Nona. They clasped hands. “Grow. Boat. Fast.”

What did the girl have in mind? Nona didn’t argue. She put her hands on the gunwale and concentrated with all her might. She could make the boat grow, but it would not affect the people on it, because her power did not extend to living things.

Meanwhile Colene went on to Darius and told him something, making gestures to augment her limited telepathy. She gave him the paddle. The two of them grabbed the net grown from the swatch of handkerchief and spread it out across the empty center of the boat. Then she ran back to rejoin Burgess. Nona’s wonder grew; this just did not seem to make much sense as a defensive measure.

The Anomaly was circling again, assessing the situation. Then it made another pass, this time not quite as swiftly. It intended to leap and catch on end of the boat or the other, and make a meal of the creatures there. Nona was expanding the boat, and it was already significantly larger than before, but the monster would still be able to clear it.

Darius took the paddle and stroked vigorously in the water. The boat began to turn, not getting anywhere but changing its orientation.

Burgess aimed his trunk to the side. This caused the boat to turn faster, being pushed from each end. But it remained right in the path of the monster. Had they gotten confused, so that instead of the paddler balancing the floater to propel the craft forward, they merely spun it around?

The Anomaly launched into the air just as the rear of the boat was swinging toward it. This caused it to miss the end and land at an angle in the center. The shock was violent; the entire body of the monster was on the boat. But the boat was half again as large as it had been, and remained firm.

Then Darius and Colene ran in from opposite sides, picking up the ends of the net. They charged the Anomaly with seeming fearlessness. This was crazy!

They met, putting their ends of the net together over the body of the monster. They quickly knotted these, and stepped back.

At last Nona saw what they had done. They had trapped the Anomaly! The creature was now on the enlarged boat, trussed in the net. It was unable to return to the water, because it was not equipped to crawl on land. It couldn’t pull itself along with its mouth tentacles, because they too were wrapped. It was, in effect, a fish out of water.

Nona stopped expanding the boat. She started contracting it, so they could move it more rapidly. They had defeated the monster, and had only to move along to the far shore. Thanks to Colene’s brilliance.

Nona really was jealous of the girl’s intelligence. She would have to tell Colene, knowing how pleased she would be to hear it.