« It would probably have been better not to face god while wearing a pink tutu, » mutters Simon under his breath. Yeah, I can see the eternal wisdom in that, kid.
Ailann turns to me with that look of world-weary imperiousness, the one that makes me wanna fuck him into the mattress (like that would ever happen) and says « I suppose it can’t be helped. I’m really too busy for this. Cillian, you’ll have to take the boys to the carnival. »
Take the boys to the carnival? What am I, a fucking Bean Sprouts leader?
What I am is the Admiral of the Unified Fleet, and the boys are our clade – read our submissives – and the carnival is another one of Chand’s whacked up social cohesion schemes, and the Bean Sprouts are an organization that provides free babysitting on the pretense of teaching woodland survival skills. Like anyone needs woodland survival on Dolparessa these days.
« Don’t look so glum, » says Simon. « It’s going to be fun. »
« I can’t believe Chand talked the Stud Buffet into this. »
« Oh, actually, the Stud Buffet is only providing support – you know, engineering consultants, that kind of thing. The showrunners are actually my club, the Lunatic Fringe. »
In other words, Davy and Suibhne. I’m doomed. No, I take that back. We’re all doomed.
Harsh is somewhere with Beat, so that leaves my boys Callum and Bastien, and Ailann’s boys, Ellery and Darius. Ellery is scared of his own shadow, and Darius is the kind that you lose every five minutes because he keeps stopping to stare at the clouds. Before I’m bringing them anywhere near this carnival thing, I’m scoping it out myself. Something Simon said is making me itchy: why does a carnival need engineers?
As I infiltrate the grounds, Stephen drives by in a giant hoverfloat occupied by a squadron of Adélie penguins wearing grass skirts. For a moment, I think I’m being strafed with automatic rounds; then I realize they’re pelting me with little spheres of plastic. Somehow, the birds didn’t get the message that carnival beads are supposed to be stringed. I have to run an evasion pattern to avoid being hit by shrapnel.
I spot Davy in front of the big top, apparently still trying to get organized. I circle round back only to find Tarlach hiding behind the tent flap. He’s snooping. « And you’re not? » he says archly.
« I’m gathering intelligence. There’s a difference. »
The members of the sponsoring clade – the Lunatic Fringe – congregate to confer with Barnabas and Ethan. « Sooo…» says Ethan. « What exactly are we supposed to be doing? »
« It’s kind of confusing, » says Davy. « Everybody thought that carnival was a great theme. Then when we started getting things together, it turned out that some of us were thinking like travelling carnival, and others like Mardi Gras carnival, and Manasseh didn’t know the difference between a carnival and a circus. »
« Suibhne is the ringmaster. That is because Suibhne looks so good wearing a top hat. »
« I’m the clown, » says Manasseh.
« You’re Harlequin, » Suibhne corrects. « Arlecchino from the Commedia dell’arte. Clowns are a subsidiary order of demon. »
« I’m the clown and Simon is the ballerina, » says Manasseh. « Isn’t he pretty? »
Tarlach nods knowingly, using his analyst face which says I’m-not-phased-at-all-please-continue.
« You guys are engineers, right? » says Davy. « So maybe you could come up with an engineering marvel that you could put in a booth? »
« You could fire me out of a cannon, » Tannon volunteers.
Great droidfucking compost balls of fire.
« That’s a little extreme, » says Simon. Simon has not mastered the I’m-not-phased-at-all-please-continue face. Simon isn’t an analyst; he’s an actor. Simon is closer to Driscoll and Quennel, which means that he has mastered the I’m-a-sensitive-creative-artist-dramatically-alarmed-about-everything face. Right now, I’m guessing my expression is the strong-stoic-military-commander-not-letting-on-that-he’s-mentally planning-an-emergency-evacuation-route face.
« It would be spectacular, » muses Barnabas.
« Some ways to be spectacular are less concussive than others, » Simon protests.
« We could put Tannon in a force bubble, » Ethan suggests.
Suibhne starts wailing. He’s so fucking loud that Tarlach jumps a good meter, nearly giving away our location. « NOOOO! This is a circus-carnival of the early 20th century. They did not have force-bubbles in that era. »
« Will anyone know the diff… » Barnabas begins.
Axel, standing behind Suibhne, waves frantically at Barnabas, while Davy clutches at his arm. « He’ll throw a fit, » mouths Axel silently.
« He’s really funny about that historical veracity shit, » whispers Davy.
« Do you think that because Suibhne is a madman that he does not see or hear? But SUIBHNE NOTICES EVERYTHING. That is what it means to be mad. Davy does not understand. Davy does not understand that time is a delicate thing, and if you are not very careful, the surface tension will break, and causality will come sliding down like a bead of water on a window. »
« I might have to intervene, » whispers Tarlach. « You never know when Suibhne will just go off completely. »
Just then, a chinstrap penguin waddles out of the concession tent set up by the Stud Buffet; he hands an ice cream to Suibhne. « Compliments of a gent named Hurley. »
It’s one of those cones dipped in chocolate and nuts. Suibhne breaks into an ecstatic smile, holding it to the sky. « Invented in 1928. It’s perfect. »
« That was ingenious, » murmurs Tarlach, typing into his datapad. « The pleroma provides. »
Barnabas looks like he might be down to his last twig. « All right. If you really want to do this, I need information. Let me send a chatburl to Caddoc. »
« Don’t you know? » says Manasseh. « You’re an engineer. »
« My knowledge is limited to everything a mechanical engineer in the Domha’vei could possibly be expected to know in the course of job performance or research. It also includes a sizable amount of information on other types of engineering. If you wanted to design a robot or a power plant, I’m your guy. But there isn’t much call for human cannonballs. »
His eyes go out of focus for a moment. « Ah, that was X’khaim. He says that the cannon is a prop. It’s not really a cannon at all, just a kind of catapult. Now that I can design. But he also said that the hard part wasn’t being fired out of the cannon. The hard part was landing without serious injury. »
« Don’t do it, Tannon! » says Simon.
« We can get Stephen instead, » says Manasseh. « He can do hoverbike tricks. »
« Over my dead rootball, » mutters Davy.
« Tannon has already contributed to the carnival, » says Axel. « He’s running a “Spin the pine cone” booth. »
Tannon displays an enormously long cone. « Pinus lambertiana, » he explains. « Sugar pine. Longest pine cone there is, although the Coulter pine has more massive ones. »
« Are you sure that’s not penis lambertiana? » says Davy. « ‘Cause it sure looks phallic to me. »
« The sugar pine is Marius’ totem, » says Axel. « Perhaps we should ask the Mile High Club for help. We could have dirigible rides. »
« Why don’t we ask Thorne? » Simon suggests. « I could ride him bareback. »
There’s a long pause where everyone is thinking about Simon riding Thorne bareback. Tarlach types furiously into his datapad.
I can’t stall forever. I pound down a couple Moth and Lamp Ales from Poole’s booth before I round up the boys. I try to kinda encourage them towards the safer attractions by marching them in strict formation. We halt in front of some weird contraption inflated like a volcano condom. It’s being run by Palmer, who doesn’t look like the craziest branch of them all, so I ask him what it’s supposed to be. He says it’s a bouncy pleroma.
« I’ve heard of a bouncy castle. I’ve never heard of a bouncy pleroma. »
« Nobody has. That’s the point. Every carnival has a bouncy castle, but this is the first ever bouncy pleroma. Who knows what you’ll find inside? »
I send Bastien for a little recon. In the meantime, I spot Beau, moving some boxes under the counter of his squirrel-shooting booth. « Need a hand? » I grab one of them and lift. It’s heavy, surprisingly heavy. « What’s in these, rocks? »
« Yeah. » He must register my incredulity, because he adds, « No, really! They’re the prizes. »
He’s giving away…rocks. It figures. What’s with this kid? Spotted dick with sawdust and gravy, he’s so fucking naïve. Probably everyone will humor him. Even Ethan does. But rocks, geez.
Thinking about it, we should count ourselves lucky that no-one has gotten spotted dick as his dessert.
« Wait, what the fuck? » says Bastien, and we hear muffled laughter from inside the inflated construct. Well, maybe it’s safe to send the others in. Except that Callum isn’t interested in fun, Ellery looks terrified, and Darius is tracing pictures in the sky with his finger.
« Fuck this, » I mutter, picking up an air rifle. They’re mechanical squirrels, and I pick them off with ease as they roll past.
« Barnabas says that contraption is finicky to maintain, but Suibhne refused to let us use holosquirrels, » Palmer explains.
« You win a prize, » announces Beauregard.
« Give it to Callum, » I reply, grinning. Callum looks devastated. What will he do with a prize? Giving him a gift was the most sadistic thing I could do.
Beauregard puts a rocky sphere upon the counter. Callum examines it, puzzled. « Oh, here, » says Beau, handing him a mallet. « Use this. »
« You want me to smash it? »
« Break it open. It’s a geode. »
Callum gives it a few solid thumps – he’s stronger than he looks – and the crusty outside cracks unevenly. It’s full of blue-green threads that look half like crystal, half like coral. Suddenly Darius is staring at it, eyes like saucers.
« That one is Polyhefronite from Universe 4598-a, » says Beauregard. « If you put it under water, it glows. »
« Now I have something nice, » Callum says sullenly. He looks determinedly at the ground, trying to hide that his eyes are smiling because he knows just as well as I that it’s all a game.
Beau offers me dessert, but for now, I’m gonna pass. I’ve got my hands full, and besides, I don’t wanna step on Ethan’s roots. But you can’t have sugar at the circus without attracting some flies. « We should try those chocumber and dirt ice cream tacos with nau’gsh salsa, » says Seth, approaching the booth with his entourage. « They’re really delicious, despite the dirt. It strikes me that a specialist in minerals would be quite useful in an alchemical laboratory. »
« Ethan might get angry about that, » Merrick warns, most certainly indicating that Merrick might get angry about that. « I don’t get this carnival. These guys are weird. »
« Hardly a thing for a man who carries around a felinoid skull to be saying, my friend, » comments Stavros.
« It’s my thing, » Merrick replies moodily.
« And your eyes are mismatched. You have the only non-blue eye in the pleroma, » Stavros continues.
« Stop picking on me, » says Merrick. « I can’t help that. I was hatched that way. »
« Some of us were born unicorns, » says Stavros. « Others were born dragons. »
I just stand there smirking. Somebody else’s problem, right?
Merrick looks agitated, but Seth places his hand on top of Merrick’s head and gently rubs his left horn. He relaxes instantly.
« He likes that? » I ask. « Isn’t it just cartilage? »
« Are branches just wood? Apparently, his horns are sensory organs, like the mothman’s antennae. It’s like scratching a felinoid’s stomach. »
« Let me try, » says Stavros, who begins to massage the right horn. Merrick arches his back. « As an exorcist, I never thought I would say this about a demon, but he’s rather sweet. »
We’re about ready to continue our forced march when I notice that Darius is missing. I enlist Seth’s squadron to help with the search. We pass a lot of stodgy old junk that Seth refers to as “quaint attractions”: a carousel, a Ferris wheel, a tilt-a-whirl, a particularly decrepit looking roller coaster. It’s because Suibhne insisted the rides come from the dawn of the Exploitation Era, early to mid-20th Century, which means we’re not gonna get anything exciting like a Wall of Fusion. On the other hand, safety protocols were kinda lacking, which means that the roller coaster is a dismemberment waiting to happen. That kind of excitement we don’t need.
We come upon a long dark tunnel which seems exactly the kind of place that would attract Darius. It’s being manned by Yves, who calls it a “Tunnel of Love.” The idea is that you ride a gondola through the tunnel. That’s it. Is that stupid, or is that stupid?
Seth must think so too, for he asks, « As a matter of curiosity, my good fellow, what is the attraction of this attraction? »
« It’s dark, » Yves replies.
« I have always been an advocate of a certain amount of darkness. »
« And I as well, but that isn’t quite what I mean. You know how it is when you emanate – you can see even if your human eyes don’t? A lot of us have never been in the dark before. This is a new experience. »
« It’s really dark, » says Merrick. « It’s meant for socially sanctioned sexual harassment. »
Huh. If it were just me and Bastien and Callum, it might be fun. But the first one to grope Ellery, there’ll be hell to pay with Ailann. Fortunately, Seth steps up to the plate. « It does seem the sort of place Darius might wander, » he says. « Perhaps we should investigate. But first, a few precautions. »
When we leave, he’s tracing a salt circle on the ground, and Prem is fumigating the gondola with storax.
As it turns out, Darius didn’t get into too much trouble; he got chosen for a demonstration at Driscoll’s face-painting booth. We find him, decorated with flowers and butterflies, in front of the puppet theatre. « Show starts in five minutes, » says Davy. « It’s an ancient classic – Ponch and Jujube. It’s a satire upon the relationship between the highway police and herbal medicines. Axel wrote the script, which was pretty helpful because I’m not good with words. »
« There isn’t much in the way of dialogue, » says Axel. « True to the spirit of the original, there’s a lot of beating things with sticks. »
Now this is my kinda entertainment. Bastien and I think it’s hilarious, especially the thing with the baby and the blowtorch, but Ellery starts to hyperventilate, and I know I’m gonna be in trouble. I send Callum to get him a soda, and we try to find a place to sit down.
The only seating is in the big top. Well, it looks harmless enough – it’s just Simon and his sparkly tutu doing handstands on a pink unicorn. Harmless enough until I start to think it through. Simon’s arms are sinewy, and he’s got a finely muscled ass, and I don’t really know what to make of him. Is he a top or a bottom? Does he wanna be male, female, what? His hair is mussed from the acrobatics, but his makeup is perfect – dark eyeliner, pale pink gloss, a bit of sparkle around the temples. In the pleroma, everybody has a role to play, but Simon is inscrutable.
It’s kinda hot. I wonder if Thorne is getting off on it?
And now it’s Stephen on his hoverbike, doing backward flips over flaming barrels. Yeah, I get what everyone sees in him. Fast, rugged, hard to pin down…not bad for a pollen quickie, but absolutely no discipline. I don’t think I could ever make a soldier of him. Might be fun to try, though.
Ellery whimpers, traumatized by the noise and the lasers. Great. And here comes Suibhne, dressed in full tuxedo, carrying a potted larch. A penguin wheels an elongated box in his wake. Suibhne opens the box, takes out a chainsaw, lays the larch down horizontally and slams down the lid. The chainsaw revs.
It goes exactly where you know it’s gonna go. Ellery is coiled against Bastien’s shoulder, sobbing. Callum, on the other hand, is staring at the severed box with shining eyes. « I want to try it, » he whispers. I’m about to explain to both of them that it’s all an illusion when the act ends abruptly.
On the other side of the arena, Stavros rises, shouting, « That isn’t the way it works! You’re supposed to put it back together! » He jumps from his seat and rushes into the arena, brandishing his wand. He repositions the two halves of the box, makes a few occult passes and opens the lid.
A penguin emerges. Well, it sort of looks like a penguin, but it’s actually gray and brown and enormous, almost as large as Suibhne. Suibhne is delighted, which is good since it coulda gone both ways. « A giant Peruvian! » he exclaims, clapping his hands.
« It’s extinct, » says Dominic, who is seated near us with Marius and Alexander. « Inkayacu paracasensis, late Eocene period. »
And then the main event: the human cannonball. That nut, Tannon with his kinky cones, he’s really gonna do it. I can feel my skin flushing as we watch him fly across the tent. Then the skylight in the big top opens (Skylight? In a tent?) and he curls into a ball at the last moment, bouncing harmlessly into the waiting net as fireworks explode above us. There’s something sexy about that absolute disregard for common sense. And the whole thing, human cannonball, explosions, kinda symbolic, ain’t it?
Tarlach pops up from behind me, typing furiously into his datapad. « Isn’t it wonderful to discover new things about your sexuality? »