Dangerous Offspring

‘We need you. You’re the smartest of us,’ I said.

‘It gets thee nowhere. Being smart just gets people killed.’ She poured another coffee.

‘Maybe you should stop drinking that,’ I added.

‘It’s just a cup of coffee.’

‘It’s not a cup of coffee, it’s a state of mind.’

Doubt masked Lightning’s usually stately face. He said, ‘I don’t know why the Insects have changed…Rayne once suggested that they bred underground or in cells behind the Wall. Why have we never seen a flight before?’

I said, ‘I told you they were coming from the Shift.’

‘Shut up about your drug fantasies!’

‘Don’t you remember the bridge?’ I asked. ‘Where do you think it led?’

Lightning blanked me out, and said, ‘Maybe there are lakes out of view in the north.’

I sighed. ‘If you want. But I circled their flight and I saw them coupling in a big, slimy orgy up there.’

Frost squeezed her eyes shut. Her body jerked upright, rigid in a long shudder. In a second she was back. ‘A…another white flash. It’s the pressure. Bad tension. I-I didn’t know this would happen. How could I?’

Lightning said, ‘We can’t be sure-’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure.’ The sights I had seen in the Somatopolis began to make sense: the obscure shape swimming in the pool, and how the water that had spouted through from Vista had triggered the Insects’ instinct to breed.

I said, ‘They’re dropping food in the lake. The Wall is not just their means of protecting the Paperlands but also a way to store food.’

‘Food?’ Lightning grimaced. ‘Why?’

‘Because whatever comes out of those eggs will want to eat.’

Frost buried her head in her hands and started murmuring, ‘I only wanted to be immortal because of Zaza…Two hundred and fifty-six; two hundred and sixty-five thousand, five hundred and thirty-six; four billion, two hundred and ninety-four million-’

‘Please stop doing that,’ said Lightning.

I wondered how to help Frost. Asking her to relax would be like trying to convince a shark to stop swimming. If they stop, they drown, so I’m told. She habitually imposes so much stress on herself that this additional stress was more than she could cope with. The very qualities that had helped her gain immortality-remarkable self-discipline and a drive to work herself to the bone-were now impediments.

She is addicted to work and buries herself in it so deeply she’s surprised when her actions affect anyone else. Let me give her a task, a purpose, another dose of work to calm her mind.

I picked up a scrap from the tide of paper on her desk, folded it into a glider and threw it past her. She looked up resentfully, selected another sheet and made a glider of far better design. She creased the edge of one wing and tossed it. It described a circle around me, turned on its side and flew back to her.

I said, ‘Do you know that water is ru

‘Ha! A little overtopping; I’d expect it to be displaced by all that detritus. The culvert is adequate.’ She sobbed and wiped her nose.

Lightning sighed, looking at the mortals lingering just out of earshot awaiting our command. ‘Try to put a better front on for the Zascai.’

‘She’s in shock,’ I said.

‘We’re all in shock.’ Lightning added, ‘There are not so many today. The flight could be dying down of its own accord.’

‘I hope so,’ I said.

Frost began to stutter, ‘D-don’t you see? That’s the point. My lake affected all the Insects in in in the area. When they’ve all…mated…the flight w-will stop. Then what? Then what?’

Now did not seem to be the right time to tell her and Lightning about the death of the Somatopolis. The Vermiform had implied that Insects don’t lay eggs in sea water. I asked, ‘Can we make the lake saline?’

Frost’s arms tensed. ‘W-we don’t have enough s-salt here.’

‘Well, order some up.’

Lightning shook his head. ‘Not a hope. How would you take it to the lake? There are too many Insects ru

A commotion in the doorway interrupted us. Wre

He had caught it before it detached its wings. The long, hyaline membranes surrounded it completely, shredded into ribbons on one side, rattling and clattering together. It reared up its front femurs threateningly and yellow paste oozed out of the severed joints.

Frost stood up. ‘Serein Wre

‘Morning, all. Think of it as one less Insect. I want to show you something.’ He let go of the ante

He drew his broadsword with a flourish. As its jaws closed on the greave plate he swept its head off, leaving it dangling from his leg.

Its body slowly stopped moving. Wre

‘Eggs. Lots of them. Do you see?’ He stirred them with his sword point, cutting their cuticles, whereupon they leaked a milky liquid.

I slipped my hand into the cold, gelatinous spawn, picked up one egg and squeezed it. It was the size of a te

‘Ugh,’ said Frost.

‘Sorry.’

‘Thank you, Wre

‘So why do they drop their wings off when they could keep flying and attacking us?’

‘They’re working on instinct,’ I told him. ‘They’re interested in the lake. It’s just coincidence that we’re here at all.’

‘But why fly? Why do they have to fly to shag?’

‘Ask it,’ I said.

Wre

He sat down on a bench end, removed his helmet and padded cap and ruffled his flattened hair to make the spikes stick up. He called to Tornado, ‘It’s your shift, Tawny. I’ve been at it since five. Give me half an hour for breakfast then I’ll come back out.’

Tornado picked up the Insect by the tip of its abdomen and dragged it, still dripping transparent gel, out of the hall.

Frost had knelt down and was counting the eggs, picking them up with gluey strands and piling them on one side. ‘There are upwards of a hundred in here. Tens of thousands of Insects are laying. If they all hatch, there’ll be millions of offspring in my lake…’

She brushed her hair back, leaving a trail of slime stuck to it, sat on her heels and looked at us, wide-eyed. ‘I have to drain the lake-as quickly as possible.’

‘How long will it take?’ I said.

‘I expected it to take days. I can’t just reel the gate wide open; it would flood everything from here to Summerday. The breakwave would be…well, maximum outflow could easily wash the levee away, and then…I don’t like to speculate.’