Welcome to Percotran -Part XXXV

By Richard Davidson

One of the cats had eaten the fresh Gualpo meat, Kasheeba remembered, as she plunged into the icy water. Why this childhood memory suddenly played itself out in her mind was of no concern to her, as she dove straight down, her eyes darting to look for Alexander.

She was dangerously close to actually caring about this man; perhaps like a mother, she reassured herself. She could hold her breath over seven minutes, so she circled the perimeter of Alexander’s entry point slowly and precisely.

There!

He was sinking slowly, and little air bubbles were starting to leak out his nose, and it looked to Kasheeba as if he was running out of time. To her surprise, she saw him shake it off, and start to swim for the surface. That was good, and as she was about to swim upwards herself, a rush of bubbles enveloped her, and she could breathe.

Swig had formed an air pocket around her, which meant he planned to suck her into the torpedo sub, which, of course he did.

Swig was very proud. He had elevated himself to glory, staying undetected all this time, and now rescuing the noble Kasheeba, who might be his Captain; he really wasn’t sure.

“You idiot,” Kasheeba admonished him, draping herself across him, as the door slammed shut, and narrowly escaping having her rear end bruised. There wasn’t much room to move, so she gave him a series of light head butts, instead of striking him.

This was very difficult for Swig. She was completely driving him wild, but was being very unpleasant at the same time. Confused and frustrated, he decided not to think about it. He would simply go along with whatever she wanted, and not ask any questions, he decided.

That was a pretty good decision, and Kasheeba set to the task of finding Alexander again. She turned the torpedo sub towards the direction she’d last seen him, and was ready to charge, when she saw a great black and white flash.

An Autrioselon. A giant flying Killer Whale. She was having a very hard time believing it.

Swig just stared, vacant-eyed, not caring any more. He’d obviously lost his mind quite some time ago, and was now dreaming up imaginary animals, and boy did this one look real!

Leviticus hit the water with the force of eight or nine African Elephants, surged beneath Alexander, and surfaced with Alexander standing majestically astride his nose, until he almost fell off, and then clung tightly to the great sea creature.

“Do you really want to be that close to my mouth?” asked Leviticus, telepathically.

Alexander scrambled to get a bit higher.

“I’ll try not to break you,” thought the whale, laughing just a bit.

“I’m a bit stronger than when we last met,” announced Alexander, wondering why he had.

“Oh really?” asked the whale.

“Hang on!”

Alexander didn’t much like the sound of that, and started to protest, but it was far too late. They were off.

“We have to go pretty fast, anyway,” said the whale.

Alexander just hung on, and didn’t think anything.

“It’s raining chunks of ice the size of your head a few hundred miles from here,” Leviticus told him, with authority.

“Say, do you know those people trying to follow us in that torpedo sub?”

“Wha-what?” thought Alexander.

“Um, I might, I suppose; I’m not sure; I don’t know.”

“I could kill them without slowing us down too much, what’dya think?” asked the whale.

“No, let’s see who they are first,” Alexander thought, efficiently.

“Well, seeing who people are can kill you, you know,” answered the whale, obviously unhappy with that idea.

“You wouldn’t even eat them, would you?” asked Alexander, with mild outrage.

“There’s two things I kill,” answered the whale, “food, and enemies. Sometimes I eat my enemies, especially when they’re not robots, but we’re really pressed for time here, believe me.”

“Are you sure you’re keeping enough distance?” Swig was surprised to hear himself ask Kasheeba.

“Of course I’m sure. He can’t get us back here,” she lied, knowing full well she was at the Autrioselon’s mercy, and had been ever since he showed up.

“Why are we following this creature?”

“He’s taking Alexander somewhere safe. There’s a deadly ice storm coming.”

“Ice storm? What the hell’s an ice storm?”

“Well,” said Kasheeba in her most scholarly voice, “it’s when a ridiculously large explosion sends millions of tons of ice into the atmosphere, and it rains down in pieces the size of cannon balls.”

“What’s a cannon ball?”

“About the size of your head.”

“Oh.”

“Those people on the boat are all going to die, aren’t they?” asked Swig, feeling a bit sad. As far as he knew they weren’t his enemy, so they must be comrades, which meant their deaths had to be avenged, somehow.

“The Bahini?” said Kasheeba, with a chill. “Those are some good warrior people there.”

“But will they die?” Swig sounded desperate.

“I don’t know. They are a very resourceful people.”

“BUT WILL THEY DIE??” Swig shouted, suddenly.

“Get ahold of yourself, man,” Kasheeba rebuked him. “People die. These people appeared to have gills or something, so my guess is they’re going to dive.”

“So they ARE going to die!” wailed Swig.

“Dive, I said DIVE!” she shouted, much louder than Swig ever could have.

And so he did, and they shot 1,500 feet straight down, before she could correct their course.

“You idiot, now I’ve lost them,” she said with disgust.

“Don’t we have any tracking equipment on this thing?” Swig asked, earnestly.

“Yes, but your foot’s on it.”

“Oh.” That was it for that idea. Swig’s legs had cramped quite a long time ago, and there was no force on this earth that could get them to move.

Kasheeba breathed on his ear. A tiny fire started at the lobe, and ran screaming through his head, and his body convulsed for a second. She did it again. He twitched, and banged his head on the hatch twice. She softly kissed his neck, and when his foot jerked just enough to fit her hand in, she grabbed the MBLX Tracker, lit the screen, and began scanning for a big flying whale.

“You’re not a nice person,” pouted Swig, who’d about had enough.

“Yes I am,” she cooed, and kissed him tenderly, for about 1/10th of a second.

Swig blushed, and said, “I guess you are,” in kind of an aw shucks voice.

“I guess it’s good that we dove,” Kasheeba said, charitably, as chunks of ice began pelting the tiny sub, slowed down by the 2,000 feet of water above them. “I don’t think we could’ve outran this thing.

Alexander and Leviticus were at the peak of a well executed jump, and Alexander could see for miles. He could hear the sound of a great “woosh” behind him, and turned his head to see a wall of ice crashing into the ocean only a few miles away.

“What do you think of that?” asked the whale.

“It’s amazing!” said Alexander.

“Well, I’d hoped you’d like it,” Leviticus thought warmly. “It might be the last thing you see.”

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