The Age of Discovery, Chapter 12: Escape!



Day 8: Continued…
“Get inside!” roars Barron.  “Fast as you can… get inside!”
The monster’s enormous head hangs over us, waving from left to right, as if its rudimentary brain is processing visual information from those huge compound eyes and chemical signals from those curious antennae, while primordial decision algorithms attempt to deduce if Cyclops registers as food.
I spin a quick 360° to locate each member of the crew.  Barron wis on the ship’s hull, reaching out to help Lyra onto the port claw extender.  In another three seconds she will be inside.  Gyro is furthest away, sprinting toward the ship, slipping on the near frictionless pond surface, half-falling and catching his balance, then running again.  If the no-see-um decides to strike, Gyro will never make it to safety.  But then… will any of us?
“Barron,” I shout across the aquatic interface, “fire the flare!”
On the canted deck of the Cyclops, Lyra clambers to the aft hatch, swings it open.  She reaches inside – pulls out a flare launcher.  She and Barron brace the launcher on the angled deck and fired it into the sky. 
A tiny red comet hisses upward into the airspace directly in front of the no-see-um’s enormous multi-faceted eyes.  The flare ignites ten millimeters off the water like a momentary micro-scale nova.  The blue-hot magnesium radiates like Independence Day fireworks over the Potomac.  The monster twitches, focuses on the momentary starburst, briefly mesmerized.
The flare buys us perhaps nine or ten badly needed seconds. 
I run with short strides and a light step, a technique that seems effective for avoiding a fall.  In three seconds I reach the ship in, but instead of climbing aboard I wait for Gyro. 
“Don’t wait for me, skipper,” the steersman shouts as he runs.  “Get on the ship!”
“Right after you,” I countermand.  In four more seconds Gyro has arrived.  Using my bent knee as a step, he grabs first the handrail, then Barron’s outstretched hand.  In another moment he is on the deck and through the hatch.  I glance over my shoulder to see if the no-see-um continues to be distracted by the flare.  The last spark of fiery magnesium fades and fails.  We are out of time.
“Jump!” bellows Barron, and a sound suggestion it is.  I jump as high as I am able.  Barron’s large hand locks around my forearm and hoists me onto the deck.  We are inside the airlock in another two seconds, Barron sealing the hatch behind us. 
I bark into the voice pipe:  “Full reverse!  Barron, drop the oil!” 
The sound of the engine rumbles reassuringly through the deck and bulkheads.  Through the small porthole in the aft hatch I see the Cyclops’ propeller begin rotating – backwards, as we had planned – then faster and faster.  With a clunk, the cable to the oil-bearing scaffolding goes taut, pulls the holding pin free.  The scaffolding tips, exactly as planned – but the cable, now slack and flying about in loose coils, becomes snagged around the corner of the scaffold.  To my horror, the platform of oil containers tilts no further.  The diatom oil shifts, but does not achieve enough angle to topple.  Unless we can quickly loosen the cable we are doomed. 
There is no time to think.  I unbolt the hatch and leap from the airlock.  In three strides I am at the scaffold.  I grab the steel cable, pull it toward the tangle to create slack in the line.  The steel fibers cut into my fingers and palms.
High overhead, yet far too close for comfort, the no-see-um freezes, staring down on Cyclops, the training its strange alien-gaze on the ship, and I swear, on me.  Everything about its posture says it is about to strike.
With a whipping motion I throw a sine wave up the slackened portion of the cable.  The wave hits the snag and the offending loop flies free from the scaffold.  It teeters, then more…
The no-see-um lunges!
I dive for the air lock, tumble inside, reach behind me to close the hatch.
With the silvery sound of breaking glass, the wall of oil containers falls spectacularly into the spinning prop, which throws diatom oil over and around the ship in a cloud.  I feel a lurch as the surface tension holding Cyclops on the surface surrenders to physics.  Cohesion has been overcome.  I brace myself against the bulkhead as the ship slips beneath the aquatic interface.  We are free!
“Ahead, full steam!” I shout into the voice pipe. From somewhere in the ship I hear the engine telegraph answer with five rapid bells.  A moment later, momentum presses me to the aft hatch.  Through the small porthole I watch the surface rise away – then a cloud of blue-green turbulence as the no-see-um’s head breaks through the water, mandibles snapping, but she will only taste the trails of our cavitation streams.  
We have escaped the monster.

Author's note: Microscopic Monsters is now being featured on Best Science Fiction Blogs

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