GRYPHON WARPLANE DESCRIPTION

SUPERB WRITE UP OF A BEAUTIFUL DEVASTATING FRAGILE WARPLANE BY MY FAVE EVER AUTHOR - read on...

GRYPHON WARPLANE DESCRIPTION

ELIZABETH HAND AESTIVAL TIDE

There were twelve of them. Each faced the outside of the dome, where the translucent polymer was etched with spray and salt, and the outlines of the skygates glowed cobalt against the bright sky. Once there had been hundreds of these biotic aircraft, a fleet powerful enough to subdue entire continents. Over the centuries, provincial rebellions and incursions by the Emirate and Balkhash Commonwealth had destroyed many of them. The bibliochlasm alone had resulted in a score being torched like mayflies to burn in the skies above Memphis.

But most of the Gryphons crystals and fluids necessary to establish the controlling link between pilot and craft, and carry the canisters of nerve gas or virus or mutagens dispatched in the Ascendants’ rains of terror. Not until the Second Ascension and the establishment of the NASNA Academy were the lost arts of biotic aviation restored. Then the first generation of Aviators were trained in the arcane methods of controlling fougas and aviettes and man-powered Condors, the solex-winged shuttles of HORUS and, most beautiful and lethal of all, the Ninth Generation Biotic Gryphons, all that remained of the imposing defense structure of the short-lived Military Republic of Wichita.

Of that squadron, only these twelve had survived. Formally, they belonged to the Ascendant Autocracy; but in truth each answered only to its Aviator—the dozen finest of the Ascendants’ troops. And while their pilots were faceless and nameless, grim histories hidden behind their sensory enhancers, the Gryphons were not. Skittish and deadly by turns, it was as though they absorbed into their very fabric—half biological material and half machine—the natures of the men and women who did not control them so much as give them impetus and inspiration for flight.

And so they had been given heroes’ names, and heroines’: Astraea and Zelus and Mjolnir, Argo and Kesef and Tyr, Chao-is and Cavas and Hekatus, Ygg and Nephele and Mrabet-ul-tan. And like heroes between their labors they waited in restless sleep, until Need came to wake them.

As ziz approached the Gryphons stirred, swiveling on their slender metal-jointed legs until their sharp noses faced her. Filaments lifted from their foresections, silvery threads with a pale rosy blush where microscopic transmitting crystals coagulated in a nucleic broth. They wafted through the air above ziz’s head like the nearly invisible tentacles of a seanettle, and for an instant she felt one brush her temple. From the front of the Gryphon nearest her an optic emerged on its long tether, and scanned her silently. She stopped, suddenly afraid.

Once when they were children Nasrani and Shiyung and an Orsina cousin had come here and entered one of the aircraft. ziz had been with them. She was usually the bravest; but something about the Gryphons made her lose heart. At the last minute she refused to join the others as they crept into the cockpit. Instead she stood watching as first Shiyung’s and then Nasrani’s face appeared in the curved glass foresection of the craft, and as they waved at ziz she yelled back, threatening to call their parents; but then Shiyung had fled shrieking from the craft. Nasrani and the feckless cousin had followed her a moment later, pale and shaken. Minutes later when they sat side by side in the gravator Nasrani giggled uncontrollably, exhilarated by the experience; but he never did tell her what had happened inside.

Now ziz stood gazing up at the first Gryphon: a machine that resembled nothing so much as a huge and delicately appointed insect. Its sides were a silvery blue that would disappear when in flight; its solex wings were retracted, folded in upon themselves like a bat’s. She could hear the soft churning of its biogenic power supply, feeding from the narrow tanks behind its legs. As she stared at it the others moved closer to her, clicking loudly. Their legs scraped the concrete, their wings rustled with a papery sound that belied their strength. She smelled the ozone smell from their solex shields, the soupy odor of power supplies. In a minute they would circle her and she would lose her nerve. Abruptly she turned to the nearest one, raised her hand and cried aloud a single word command, a name. The other Gryphons did not stop, but the one she faced obediently bent its legs and lowered a small metal ladder for her to climb.

Once inside she realized she should never have used the ampule. She felt as though her heart would explode inside her; she knew her contact with the Gryphon would be affected by the drug. But she couldn’t waste time now. Outside the ledge shook precariously from another tremor, even as she crouched to sit in the cockpit and the other Gryphons clicked noisily, their legs moving up and down asthey sought to keep their balance.

Inside there was barely enough room for the standard crew of three. She took the pilot’s seat, cradled in warm leather as it folded about her. In front of her the windshield curved above the Gryphon’s pointed nose. A simple array of instruments was set beneath the window—visual altimeter, old-fashioned computer astrolabe, a line of blinking green lights. The color of the lights seemed an evil omen to ziz, but she refused to contemplate that either. Instead she pulled her hair from her face, stared at the ceiling with its shining meshwork like webs of frozen rain, and commanded the Gryphon to join her.

She winced as a web floated down to cover her face. It felt cool and slightly moist, and her cheeks and temples prickled as it settled there. Her nostrils filled with the smell of ozone, so strong that she sneezed. Other webs descended to touch her wrists and throat. If she had been an Aviator wearing proper flight attire they would have affixed themselves to her genitals and thighs as well, so that every gesture, every throb of need or desire, would feed back into the craft’s control system, and the Gryphon would calculate all of this in a nanosecond before responding to any command.

If ziz had been properly interfaced with her craft, it probably would not have responded to her at all; would have dismissed her as not being flight-ready. But ziz had come armed with a few purloined commands, and these the Gryphon did not refuse.

A moment when ziz knew nothing. There was a rushing in her head that grew to a roar, then faded. She had a nearly uncontrollable impulse to flee, but thought of Nasrani—he would not have fled!—and grit her teeth. Then,

OrsinaGoAltitudeDestinationTimeFlightNexusKesefOhFourNineteenHoursKesefWaitingWaitingWaiting

She cringed, pressing herself deeper into her seat’s leather folds. Blood filled her mouth where she had bitten the inside of her cheek. The barrage of words and commands continued, along with a stream of images burning across her mind’s eye: clouds, a slash of ocean, flames, and a face black behind its enhancer. Kesef was the Gryphon’s name; the unknown words cues for flight setup and takeoff. ziz’s mind reeled as the Gryphon began another query loop—

KesefOrsinaLevelTwoWindsFiftythreeKnotsSoutheastSolarActivityRangeOhSevenOhDangerousCraftAlertKesefWaitingWaitingWaiting

An impossibly blue sky filled her mind, fringed with green that reminded her of her dream. Her mouth filled with the muddy taste of nucleic fluid, her eyes burned from trying to focus on the incomprehensibly alien presence she was linked with. Without realizing it her hands clawed at her face, and she felt part of the web tear beneath her fingers, fragile as silk, and felt the Gryphon’s voice grow dimmer. She would go mad if she stayed like this—

She groped at her side until she found a pocket, slid her fingers inside, and drew out a morpha tab. An instant later and she had slapped it clumsily onto her wrist, ripping a piece of the web. The image of green mountains grew faint, then a moment later flared back again. Another moment and she felt the morpha’s first warm calm waves lapping at her spine; a minute later and she could breathe easily once more.

“Kesef.”

She pronounced the name thickly, was rewarded with a spurt of pleasure that nearly overwhelmed the morpha. She knew it wasn’t necessary to speak commands aloud, but when she tried to think them the Gryphon’s presence overwhelmed her.

“Kesef—I need—meet you—hour’s time by Lahatiel Gate—east face—tell no one—”

The shining vision of mountains vanished. After a moment she saw the Lahatiel Gate, the eastern face where a small balcony jutted above the beach, barely large enough for a Gryphon to land. She focused on the image, concentrating until she felt Kesef’s response—

OrsinaKesefOhFiveSeventeenLockgridFiveLevelTwoSecurePathZeroClearedKesefNextCommand

“That’s all!—”

ziz gasped, tried to clear her mind of the Lahatiel Gate, flashed for a second upon the Compassionate Redeemer pacing in its cage, bit her lip, thought of nothing but blackness, whispered aloud, “Finished— finished—done—”

Her mind went blank. A jolt as she felt the seat gently pushing at her; she had been unconscious. She blinked her eyes open to see the web wafting up from her face, the others floating toward the ceiling like a fine gray mist. Her cheeks felt warm and stung as though she had been slapped. Outside grayish sunlight slanted in long bars across the ground. As she clambered from the Gryphon, struggling with the ladder as her legs wobbled on its narrow steps, the other crafts once more sent their filaments through the warm air to dart abouther face. She swiped at them feebly, her head still thick from morpha, and staggered to the gravator that would bring her to the Lahatiel Gate. She did not look back to see the Gryphon Kesef unfurl its great shining wings, raising them in arcs of ebon-gold and green to feel the morning sun.

But ziz was very careful. In the center of the balcony the Gryphon Kesef waited, its wings tucked tightly against its sides, its nose drawn in as it crouched against the floor. Rain gusted in sheets across the open space, dashing against the Gryphon’s legs. As the margravine crept onto the balcony her boots crunched against something solid; glancing down, she saw the surface pied with hailstones like rice pearls. She cursed, sliding on the ice; caught herself and inched forward again. In a few minutes she had reached the Gryphon.

The howling wind had risen to a shriek. She could not hear herself as she shouted the command, could not hear if the aircraft responded. But a moment later the Gryphon rose unsteadily on its jointed legs, the slender metal stairs descended, and she was climbing them, clinging to the narrow struts as the wind battered her. Then she was inside.

Gasping, she flung herself into the seat. The leather molded itself around her and she felt a prickling warmth as auxiliary enhancers sent a soft surge of endorphins and nutriments into her veins. She blinked, stared up to where the webs began to descend in a gray haze; shut her eyes as they touched her face and she could feel the strange patterns tracing themselves onto her cheeks, temples, the inside of her wrists.

OrsinaKesefNineTwelveCycloneSystemGradeOneRescueAdvisoryOverriddenUnitRecalledLockgridFiveLevelTwoWaitingWaitingWaiting…

ziz cried out. Across her mind’s eye crimson lines formed an intricate crosshatch, a grid bisected with green and glowing blue spheres. She could hear the fluting voice of the thing called Kesef, the Gryphon that waited for her command; she could feel the ground shuddering beneath it. She clenched her mouth shut and tried to focus, concentrating until she brought up an image, the figure of an Aviator silhouetted against the domes of Araboth. Then she willed away the domes, tried to imagine what one of the frontier outposts might look like, ended up with the Aviator’s silhouette and a hazy blue background. Go there, she thought, then said the words aloud in a croak.

“Where they are—the Aviators—find them—” There was a crackle of static electricity, a blinding light outside and then a crash. She could feel the Gryphon fighting her, trying to override her command as it sent warning messages blaring through her mind—

CycloneTsunamiHurricaneGaleSamielDangerDangerDanger

—but she repeated her command, again and again, each time the image growing clearer in her mind, until finally with a shudder she felt the aircraft move around her. Then it was as though the flesh had been sheared from her face: all around her she felt the raw wind, the rain like razors slicing against her skin; but of course that was the Gryphon and not her, and it was the Gryphon’s voice keening like a brazen bell as it soared from the balcony, up and up into the whirling storm until she could feel nothing, not even the shafts of light spearing along its wings as the gale tossed it and the Gryphon fought to make its way inland, while the woman who had commanded it lay unconscious in its grasp, beset by evil dreams. She did not realize until later, when she woke, that she had unconsciously given the solitary figure of her voiceless command the stooped bearing and ruthless pale eyes of Margalis Tast’annin, the Aviator Imperator.

He had always thought it would be exciting to fly in one of the Aviator’s biotic craft; but then he had thought it would be exciting to see clouds, too, and mountains. Now Hobi knew that one grew accustomed to things Outside very quickly.

He felt queasy at first, as the Gryphon accelerated impossibly fast and burst into the air like a flame. There was only one biotic hookup, for Tast’annin. Hobi and Nefertity sat in two narrow seats behind him, and peered out a series of round windows at the tor receding beneath them in a rush of gray and brown. Then the Gryphon banked and shot out over the ocean, seeming to bounce across cusps of air like a rickshaw over uneven transway. Hobi bit his thumb and hummed nervously. After a minute or two he felt easier, and leaned closer to the windows.

Below them the ocean purled almost gently against sheer rock, all that could be seen of the precipice that had once sheltered Araboth. Of the domeshe could see nothing; only a few bits of flotsam floating in the dark water. As they skimmed above the coast the rock gave way to sandy beach, nearly as smooth as the water itself. There was nothing here either, save for uprooted trees, a torn length of white cloth wrapped around a spar, two sodden bags that almost looked like bodies…

“Hey!”

Hobi yelled so loudly he was surprised the Gryphon didn’t halt, the way a rickshaw would. The Aviator scarcely stirred where he reclined in front of them, only raised a single finger warningly.

“Hey,” Hobi repeated, a little desperately now, “I think those are people there—”

Beside him Nefertity leaned to gaze out her window, then without a word placed her hand upon the Aviator’s shoulder. Abruptly he sat up, glanced down at the beach, then back at Hobi. Still saying nothing he settled back into his seat; but the Gryphon immediately began to descend.

Hobi held his breath, waiting for the jolt when it landed; but he felt nothing, was stunned when the floor slid sideways beneath his feet and the airy steps unfolded. “Wait here,” the Aviator commanded, and climbed out.

Hobi crossed and uncrossed his legs. A gust of warm air shot up from the opening in the craft. If he slanted his head just right he could see one of the Aviator’s booted feet and what might have been the ragged hem of a linen garment. Then abruptly the Aviator’s grim form filled the opening. Hobi crouched back as the rasa climbed inside, carrying something in his arms. The nemosyne slid from her seat onto the floor, folding her long legs under her.

“Move,” the Aviator said sharply, shaking his head at Hobi. The boy hunched into a corner beside Nefertity. The rasa lay a slight figure on the seat where Hobi had been, then silently turned and went back outside. He returned after another minute, this time with an even smaller form that he set in Nefertity’s seat. Without another word he slipped back into his place. The steps slid up and disappeared. With a heart-stopping rush they were airborne again.

When Hobi was sure the Aviator was linked with the Gryphon he leaned forward. In his seat lay a slender figure. At first he thought it was a boy, a boy with shaven head; then with a grimace he drew back.

Through the small windows on the other side of the Gryphon he could glimpse green, shivering blades of green and blue as they soared above the coast and the setting sun speared the sides of the craft. Then, looking back through the window where Reive pointed he could see the ocean, so tranquil now that it all seemed a dream—Ucalegon, Araboth, the evil margravines, his father and mother and Nasrani, everything but that endless sweep of turquoise a dark and fitful dream from which he had just awakened. He might almost fall asleep again, now, with his head resting against the cool glass, only someone was jostling his elbow and crying in a shrill voice, “Look! Look!—”

—and pointing to where something moved through the gentle swells, something that even from here he could see was ponderously huge and dark. Only there wasn’t just one; there were four of them, and they seemed to be playing, great clumsy things somehow taking to the air of this new green world just as he was, twisting in impossible arabesques as they swam in and out and between each other—

“—he was right,” Reive was babbling as the Gryphon banked to the west and she craned her neck to see the last of them, four vast creatures leaping and crashing back into the sea with a bellow they could hear even from this distance; “he said they were waiting for him, he said his sisters would come and they did, oh, they did!”

And wondering, Hobi pressed his face close to hers against the glass, watching the great whales until they were gone, swallowed like the rest by the sea.

GRYPHON NAMES FROM AESTIVAL TIDE BY LIZ HAND-

And so they had been given heroes’ names, and heroines’: Astraea and Zelus and Mjolnir, Argo and Kesef and Tyr, Chao-is and Cavas and Hekatus, Ygg and Nephele and Mrabet-ul-tan. And like heroes between their labors they waited in restless sleep, until Need came to wake them.