We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Howard

August 2344

Jabberwocky

We were over the lake, and the floaters were greedily sucking up water. The central reservoir on the Hunter had grown visibly and was in danger of developing an outflow stream across the top. But the Hunter was a big, mature floater with a lot of tendrils. Some of the smaller floaters were still well short of full.

Since the Hunter was ahead of schedule, my trawling crew had decided to try a few casts. Results were encouraging, if somewhat skimpy. We’d caught some lake fish, which at least showed the system worked. But we’d never feed the population with that kind of take. And we were barely moving when we trawled the net. It could still break at speed.

The local dragons had stopped heating rocks and were letting the existing piles cool off. The next step was to cut the tendrils, and we were listening to a senior floater-herder describe where and how to cut. Obviously, it had to be done in-flight, which immediately complicated things. The essential maneuver was to approach the dangling tendril, then roll ninety degrees and swipe at it with a machete-like tool. The machetes were raw iron, as the dragons hadn’t developed alloying yet, which meant they didn’t hold much of an edge. The cut had to be done cleanly, or you’d not only fail the cut but throw yourself into an uncontrolled yaw. And probably drop the machete, which is why they had tethers.

Then there was a shout. “Eruption!” We all looked landward to see the top of a hill splitting and emitting a huge black cloud. It appeared the volcanic wave had arrived.

“Bridget?” I intercommed.

The reply came back in a few seconds.

“No toxic gas emissions, beyond the smoke and ash. So far, anyway. But we’d better get ready to make tracks.”

Dammit. We’d be going out with the trawling system untested and next to no stock of trout.

In moments, dragons were launching from the royal floater to relay orders to the flotilla. It looked like we’d be leaving immediately.

I started yelling at my crew to get the net out again. We’d have one last chance to scoop up a catch. For good or ill, this was the full test, with no opportunity to fix and retest.

The crew was enthusiastic and surprisingly well trained, considering how new the whole technology was to them. Dragons had neither the wheel nor the pulley, having never developed any kind of need for either. It was interesting how biology could affect the pace and path of scientific development.

By the time the Hunter started moving, we had the net in the water and fully open. The boom was extended out at forty-five degrees, keeping the line clear of the edge. There was an audible thrum as the line went taut, then a perceptible surge in the water below. Erik watched the progress of the net from the edge of the floater. In seconds, he started yelling at the crew to winch in the net. There was no hesitation; the dragons on winch duty started cranking immediately. With an audible groan, the boom took up the load—then started to bow.

“Oh shit!” I yelled, then pointed. “Brace it! Brace it!”

Several dragons grabbed spare poles and jammed them into position to take up part of the load on the winch. We’d planned for this possibility, but it was still a dangerous proposition. If the winch gave out, everyone within a pole length would be injured or killed.

With dragons draped around the reinforcing poles, the winch regained its shape, and the winching crew resumed their task, pulling in time to a chant that I’d taught them. Fortunately, no one on this planet would ever recognize—

“You have got to be kidding me!” Bridget exclaimed from behind me.

Busted.

“You taught them that? You are a sick, depraved … ” Then she lost the thunderous expression and started to laugh.

I smiled back and joined the chant. “Oh-Ee-Yah! Ee-Oh-Ah!” A few seconds later, Bridget joined me, and now we were both chanting in sync with the crew. “Oh-Ee-Yah! Ee-Oh-Ah!”

Soon, the net was suspended from the boom, and the crew began winching it over. Bridget gave me the hairy eyeball and said, “You’re still a sick puppy.”

“The Winkies were my favorite part of The Wizard of Oz, honestly.” I gestured to the net, changing the subject. “The net held. But I think we’ll have to reinforce the boom before we try that at sea.”

Bridget appraised the bulging net. “A pretty good haul. Let’s hope the grills school as tightly.”

*****

We were emptying the fish catch from the net into the central lake when I got an intercom alert from Bridget. “Another gas eruption. This one’s toxic. Probably going to dome up at least some.” At the same time, I saw another flock of dragon “runners” erupt from the royal floater.

The floaters had a minimal propulsion ability, sort of equivalent to sculling with a rudder. It wasn’t much, but given the alternative, everyone was going for it. Even the floaters seemed to have noted the urgency, and the flotilla had now picked up speed from glacial to dead slow.

But then we got an unexpected bonus. The toxic gas plume was indeed doming, and with my dragon eyesight, I could actually see the interface. But as it spread, it was acting like a wave, lifting the floaters from the back and propelling them forward like surfers riding a swell, at a pace that very probably no one had ever seen. I wanted to yell, “Whee!” but the faces of those around me made me pause. Some of the dragons abandoned ship, in fact, flying up and forward to the front of the flotilla.

In five minutes, we were almost two miles out to sea. Now we were committed, one way or the other. If we couldn’t get the floaters to cooperate, we’d die on the shores of Atlantis. If we couldn’t collect enough food on the voyage, dead. If we missed the edge of Lemuria, dead. If we got knocked out of the sky by one of the winter storms, dead.

Talk about all in.

*****

The thing about ocean voyages is they’re like being in the military. At least I assume so, never having done either before. But with both, it’s long periods of not very much, punctuated by moments of pure terror.

The pure terror in this case was the first winter storm. You’d think being above the waves, we’d be spared some of the heaving, but no. I did look down a couple of times and wished I hadn’t. The waves were—well, a half-mile high was probably an exaggeration, but it sure looked that way to me. Most dragons, who’d never seen anything more lively than a lake surface, were huddled in trees or nests, shaking.

I understood now why Alexander had been getting the floaters used to being lashed together. If we’d been all floating individually, the flotilla would have been scattered beyond hope. The rope system also helped to maintain some stability, preventing individual floaters from rolling over in the gale-force winds.

And according to Mario, this storm was just a baby.

It lasted three hours and was followed by blue skies and an extreme cold front. As soon as things settled, we were visited by runners from His Nibs, ordering us to build fires and deploy the warming rocks.

Bridget explained that the floaters’ instinct in cold weather was to release some ballast to maintain buoyancy. But we couldn’t afford to lose any fresh water. The hot rocks would convince the floaters to hydrolyze water to hydrogen instead. And the warming would make their gas bladders expand a bit as well.

I shook my head at the thought of all this casual use of fire around what were essentially living bags of hydrogen gas. I made a comment to that effect, and Bridget explained, “It’s not that simple, Howard. The floaters have evolved to avoid Hindenburg-type events. For starters, the gas is kept in many smaller bladders rather than a few big ones, and it’s surrounded by tissues that absorb any stray oxygen and route it away. It’s quite a system, really.”

Bridget always made me smile when she went into biologist mode. In her own way, she was very Bob-like, just about different subjects. Not that I would ever point that out. Again.

“But they do catch fire, sometimes,” I replied.

“Sure, there are limits to what biology can do. A straight-up bladder puncture, if there’s an open flame around, is game over.” Bridget shook her head in sorrow. “It is the biggest source of mortality for this species. I think what’s going on now on Atlantis will decimate any remaining floaters.”

I cocked my head. “How much of the dragon and floater population do you think we’re saving by doing this?”

“A few percent at best, Howard. But I’m not sure anything will survive this round of eruptions.” She paused, looking forlorn. “This time looks like it’s going to be far worse than the previous events. Mario sends me updates regularly, and some of the images … ”

“That bad?”

“I think Atlantis is actually splitting up this time. I hope Mario can get a geologist on board soon to confirm this, but it looks like the continent is on at least three different plates, and the pieces have started to separate.”

“Wait, how fast—”

Bridget shook her head. “No, we won’t see it in a dragon lifetime. But Mario reports that parts of the continent have lurched apart by tens of meters in some locations.”

“So Atlantis is done for?”

“Oh, it’ll reacquire habitability eventually, and get repopulated. But meanwhile, the dragons and floaters are going to have to make a go of it on Lemuria.”

“Well, let’s just make sure we get there.”

*****

We were three days out when we hit our next major storm. Or to be more accurate, the storm hit us. Mario had warned us that it was coming, but the flotilla wasn’t what you’d call maneuverable. Bridget mentioned the danger to Alexander, and orders went out to batten down whatever passed for hatches around here.

The storm came in from the northeast, looking like something straight out of a Spielberg movie, clouds billowing and folding upon themselves in some kind of special-effects spectacular. When the leading wall of wind hit us, it pushed the closest floaters into the next, and them into the next, in some kind of giant dominoes game. This was where tying the floaters together started to look like genius. It forced them to stay on a level plane. Any attempt to force a floater up over or down below part of the flotilla was arrested by the ropes and the inertia of the rest of the fleet. Of course, the whole shebang could be blown around like a leaf in the, uh, wind.

Between the gusts, we were being hammered by rain squalls. Not continuous rain, just sheets being blown in to make our lives miserable. No one was going to be flying in this.

Then it happened. It wasn’t lightning, as there hadn’t been any. Possibly someone didn’t batten something down properly. But for whatever reason, fire broke out on one of the floaters. The trees were too wet to catch, but the village was like kindling, and still relatively dry thanks to being under cover. Dragons now flew off in panic, not just fleeing the fire but also fleeing the floater.

“We have to cut it loose!” I yelled to no one in particular. Grabbing a machete, I tossed another to Bridget. We spotted a couple of soldiers and yelled at them, then launched.

A few other dragons had already gotten the idea and were cutting the ropes from the edges of their floaters, probably self-preservation more than any kind of tactic. I landed with a jolt at the base of a rope, tied to a huge stanchion, and began hacking. Bridget was out there doing the same, but I had no time to look for her or try to coordinate anything.

Then soldiers began arriving with machetes, and we soon had the floater cut free. It immediately dropped—a survival strategy that involved jettisoning gas, hopefully not in the area of the fire. Any dragons that hadn’t left the floater now did so.

The chaos was incredible. Dragons flying around, trying to land on other floaters while being buffeted by the storm; floaters trying to stampede in panic; and the slashed ropes whipping around in the gale-force winds. I saw at least one dragon get clipped and go down.

But the fire didn’t seem to have spread. That was something.

Then the sky lit up. The fire had reached the floater’s gas bladders, and it was now full-on burning. And the floater was letting out a hideous screech as it began to tumble toward the ocean below.

“I wouldn’t have thought they had any ability to vocalize,” I muttered to no one in particular.

Bridget’s voice replied quietly behind me. “It could just be escaping gas, Howard. But either way, it’s dying. There’s no way to help it now.”

It took more than a minute for the cartwheeling mass of flames to hit the waves. The fire actually managed to stay lit for another several seconds before the ocean engulfed what was left. A sigh went up from the dragons who had gathered to watch. Then slowly, one by one, they turned away.

*****

The cleanup took hours. The storm had shredded a lot of buildings and other structures and had pulled up or knocked down trees over the entire flotilla. This meant wounds on the floaters, more leaked hydrogen, and the loss of the nutrients that those trees had supplied.

We’d also lost several dozen dragons, based on a rough survey. No one was sure if they’d died or just been blown away by the storm. We asked Mario to keep an eye out from orbit, but there wasn’t much he could do. Individual dragons were just too small to see from space.

The floaters were pulled close to repair the hole in the flotilla, and ropes were re-tied. It wasn’t clear whether the loss of the one floater had affected our overall chances of success or merely made the floater breeding pool a little smaller.

The storm had blown us farther south than we wanted to be, though. We would now have to start tacking more northward if we hoped to make landfall.

“One good thing, I guess,” Bridget said, sitting beside me and handing me a cup of tuev. “The storm replenished the freshwater reservoirs.” She leaned into me, and we shared some warmth.

“We lost whatever freshwater fish were in the burned floater’s reservoir,” I replied gloomily. “But we kept all the dragons who abandoned ship. So rations will be short.”

Bridget leaned back and turned her head to me. “Ocean fishing hasn’t been very successful.” It was a statement more than a question.

“It’s not that there aren’t any fish in the ocean, Bridge. It’s just hard to trawl a net with waves that high.” I sighed. “This would have been easier in summer when the weather’s better.”

“I’ll make a note of that for next time,” Bridget replied with a snort.

We sat in silence for a while. Then Bridget said, “We’re not going to make it.” I didn’t comment, so she continued, “There won’t be enough food.”

“The voyage is just a couple more weeks, Bridget. Even if they have to go to zero rations, surely they’ll survive that.”

She shook her head. “Dragon metabolism. They’re fliers, Howard. They burn five thousand calories a day easily. They can’t just turn it off. And they don’t really have fat reserves.” She paused. “And anyway, well before dragons start collapsing from starvation, they’ll be killing each other over the remaining food.”

“Not good.” I stared up at the sky, thinking. “Stretching the rations by having half the population killed off is not an acceptable solution. Do you think there are still freshwater fish on Atlantis? Trout or something close?”

“Excuse me?” Bridget exclaimed, plainly confused by my non sequitur.

“I’m thinking a couple of midnight runs with cargo drones.”

“Howard, that’s absolutely—” Bridget stopped midsentence and swiveled her head several times. “Um, that’s … kind of brilliant.”

“That’s why you give me the big bucks.”

“I give you no bucks.”

“Sorry, I mispronounced that last word.”

Bridget started laughing, drawing stares—and some glares—from other dragons. “You, sir, are a sick puppy. But I repeat myself.” She lowered her voice. “Let’s talk to Mario. They are his drones, after all.”

*****

Mario thought it was hilarious. “High-tech drones and roamers trawling for fish,” he crowed. “Talk about misappropriation of resources.”

“Is it misappropriation, though, if you’re in charge?” I asked innocently.

“Okay, Howard. We’ll print up a couple of nets—at least we don’t have to work with the native fiber—and I’ll do a quick survey to see which lakes, if any, still have life in them. The northwest segment of the former eastern continent seems a teeny bit less active. We’ll start there.”

“Thanks, Mario,” I replied. “Once we’ve got results, we’ll talk about how to sneak the fish in.”

“Better not get caught,” he said with a grin. “This would be real hard to explain.”

*****

Dragons weren’t, by nature, much of a nocturnal animal, but all it would take would be one insomniac night owl to screw the op. We’d discussed a schedule with Mario, whereby we would restock a couple of floaters per night. Bridget and I stood guard using our small drones, ready to abort if any movement was spotted.

It worked fine for three nights, but on the fourth day, someone noticed that the fish stocks seemed to be up on one of the floaters. It created a general rush to get a close look at the central lakes, which, of course, meant everyone now had a good idea of how much—or how little—fish was left.

So now we had six floaters with a lot of fish, and several dozen with very little fish. Which meant panic about the potential short rations and animosity about accusations that some villages were hoarding their supply.

In the end, we had to get out the army to prevent a civil war. Alexander spent several days talking with the leaders of villages and eventually managed to broker a peaceful agreement for food sharing.

We were seated at Alexander’s strategy table afterward, with him glaring at Bridget and me while we did our best to look innocent and bewildered.

“I find your explanations unsatisfying,” he said to me.

“We haven’t explained anything,” I retorted.

Alexander gave me a thin smile. “I’m glad you noticed that, too.”

Oh, funny guy. Keeping my face deadpan, I replied, “What exactly are you expecting us to have or have not explained?”

“The two of you are strange,” Alexander said. “I’ve commented on this before. You seem to have knowledge that no one could reasonably have—like what weather is coming. You have amazing engineering knowledge despite no good explanation for where you acquired it. I wonder if some assisted questioning might elicit more information.”

Assisted questioning was a dragon euphemism for torture. Not that it would really affect us personally, but having to either destroy the drannies or make a dramatic escape would pretty much put an end to our part in this adventure.

“So I’m confused.” I risked glaring at him. “As near as I can tell, you’re angry because I created a way to catch fish in bulk from a floater, because Bridget can read the weather better than most, and because we turn out to have more fish stock than expected. Is that about right?”

Alexander blinked, then looked around the table. None of his generals would meet his eyes.

“Ah, when you phrase it that way, I guess it’s better than the alternatives.” He paused, then nodded. “I suppose we should just accept good fortune when we find it. How tight is the food situation?”

Bridget answered the last question. “I estimate another week before we arrive, what with being blown off course. We have enough food for four days if we’re careful. If we can pick up even a modest haul from Howard’s trawling, we’ll make it.”

“You’ve caught next to nothing for the last couple of weeks,” he said, addressing me. “How likely is it that you’ll suddenly have luck?”

“With due respect,” I replied, “we don’t know very much about grill schooling patterns away from land. It might be that they only swim close to shore, or it might be that they swim deeper in the open ocean. It would explain why the catch dropped off a couple of days out.”

Alexander nodded. “Hopefully in four days, we’ll be close enough to Lemuria.” He stood. “Otherwise, there will be bloodshed.”

*****

“Well, hell,” I said afterward. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We can’t restock any more ponds,” Bridget said, nodding. “They’ll notice and wonder where the fish came from.”

Mario was in on the conversation, by intercom. “What about dropping in small numbers?”

“If you drop in enough to make a difference, they’ll notice. Everyone’s aware of the stock levels now,” she replied.

“Can we ‘accidentally’ catch a bunch of grill?” I asked.

“What we can do,” Bridget said, “is check your theory about grill schooling closer to shore.”

“Already did that,” Mario replied. “It’s not that it’s untrue; it’s just that there aren’t a lot of grill schools around the western continent’s shore. Might be seasonal; might be that they’re more of an eastern continent fish. Either way … ”

“Either way, no dice,” I grumbled. Then I perked up. “Hey, Mario, how far are we from landfall right now? Shortest distance to land?”

“A couple hundred miles. Why?”

“There are lots of fish in lakes on Lemuria, right? Otherwise, all of this is for nothing.” It was a rhetorical question. We’d long since verified that the dragons would have a food supply when they arrived. “So why not just fly the entire population in ahead of the floaters?”

Bridget frowned. “Because they need the floaters?”

“Okay, no,” I said, waving my hands in negation. “Leave enough dragons to bring in the floaters, and fly everyone else over. If we only leave half the population behind, they’ll have enough food to make it.”

“It’s a bit of a desperation move, but not impossible.” Bridget stood. “Let’s go talk to Alexander.”

*****

Alexander was not enthusiastic. “Flying over unknown ocean to an unknown destination is going to be a hard sell.”

“Wait, what?” I retorted, frowning. “You did it. With the canoe.”

“With three of my best, strongest wingers. And with being able to set down the canoe and rest when necessary. We can’t do this four dragons at a time. Not to mention having to get the canoe back to the flotilla somehow.”

“Hmm. Gotcha.” He wasn’t wrong. Whatever we did would have to be one-way. I turned to Bridget. “Can we make it in one session?”

“No,” she replied. “We’ll need to overnight once.”

“Could we drag a floater? If everyone pulled—”

Both Bridget and Alexander shook their heads at the same time. “It’s not a question of power,” Bridget said. “With the whole population, we have the muscle. The problem is, dragons can’t really hover, and they’d have to be all but hovering while pulling on the ropes.”

I glanced at Bridget as she messaged me. “We might have to consider breaking character.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a little divine intervention might be in order. Otherwise, this is going to end in disaster.”

“Hold on,” I replied, “I have one more idea to try.”

“You two are doing it again,” Alexander interrupted. We had apparently been silently staring at each other for several seconds. “Mind sharing your thoughts?”

I took a moment to work everything through before replying. “How long do you think the average dragon would have to rest in the canoe or some kind of boat if they were going to try to get across to the mainland as quickly as possible?”

“Well, carrying the canoe would tire them—”

“No canoe,” I interjected. “Just free flight, land, rest, go.”

“Huh.” Alexander thought for a second. “A couple of hours, really. It would help if they had a supply of tuev to reinvigorate themselves. But then flying at night would still be a problem.”

“Fires. Signal fires on the boat and on the mainland. From soaring altitude, you’d have no problem picking them out.”

Alexander nodded. “Sounds great. One small problem I can see … ”

“I have that covered. We build rafts, carry them out the same way you and your wingers carried the canoe. We’d need more people lifting each one, of course. You’d want your strongest doing this part. Plunk the rafts down in the same spot and tie them together. That becomes the midway rest area.”

“What about fires?” he asked.

“We’d have to bring hearth materials so the raft doesn’t burn up, obviously. So a second wave would bring that, plus kindling, tuev, fire-making tools, whatever else. But the first wave, once rested, would fly on to the mainland and light fires from whatever’s available. Once all this is set up, the rest of the population—or as many as want to and are capable of it—follow in waves. The rest stay on the floaters to bring them in. They’ll have enough food to make it then.”

Alexander gazed at me, frowned, then turned to one of his most trusted generals. “What do you think?”

The dragon looked uncomfortable with being put on the spot, but you didn’t dodge a question from Alexander. “It, uh, I mean, I don’t see any obvious reasons why it would fail. Unless the weather went bad unexpectedly.”

We all looked up reflexively. The skies were clear and calm.

“That might not hold,” I muttered.

“Then let’s get started,” Alexander replied.