The Possle

Chapter 11 of Signature

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Chapter Eleven

The Possle

The Group put up no resistance as they were dragged down one long tunnel after another.

Even in his semi-conscious state, Amantu was aware of an overall increase in brightness as they progressed, and more torches could only mean they were nearing the nest. Micah and Malachi savagely kicked off the groping inhabitants, but not out of fear for their own safety--these lunging men and women were vying solely for a fist or a foot in the face. It was clear, by the tenor of their captors’ cursing, that this whole symbiotic crush had become a frustrating routine of Honeycomb navigation. Eventually the flow grew to a scrabbling riot, obliging Micah to clear a path with a torch to the eyes of anyone near. When the smell of singed flesh became unbearable he handed his brand to Malachi, yanked Amantu to his feet, and slapped the professor’s cheeks back and forth until he began to weakly struggle.

Micah shoved him face-first at random grappling souls.

“See anybody like him in the big city? Huh, Mr. Filthy Godless Atheist? Or how’s about her? You got anyone that tough in your sissy-arse offices? And how long d’you think you, without a sheep or a shepherd, could last down here? Let me learn you something, brainy-boy. God don’t like gray matter, he ain’t above a little apropos torture now and then, and He sure ain’t partial to guys in gold skirts.”

Micah twisted Amantu’s arm up behind his back until the professor bellowed with pain. “I’ll learn you something else. The Book says a long-long time ago they had someones called gladiators. You know why they was so glad? Because they got to go out and slew one another for sport and big hurrahs. Let me tell you, Senator, they was some tough pickles back then; men who really knew how to get God’s attention. Now, it occurs to both me and Mal that He might be wanting to see what stuff you’re made of, once we get you into a fighting mood proper.”

“Twenty-t-t--” called Malachi, “--twenty t-talons on the f-fat one.”

“Which?” said Micah.

“Biggest!”

“Not a chance. She’s my pretty bull.” He caressed Amantu’s recoiling cheek with the back of his hand. “Thirty.”

“On wh-who?”

“Little one.”

“Twenty f-five and dirty-d--dirty-d--dirty d-doubles!”

“On!” Micah blew into Amantu’s sweat-soaked hair. “You won’t disappoint me now, will you, sugar? I knows good fighting blood when I smells it.”

Malachi prodded Izzy over, grabbed a couple of torches, and cleared a space by singeing anyone within reach. In a minute the place was reeling with screams and the stench of burnt hair. After adamantly whispering in Izzy’s ear, Micah walked back to Amantu, jabbing a ramrod finger repeatedly at Abel as he strode. “Watch him!”

Malachi obediently busied himself with Abel.

Micah yanked back the professor’s head.

“Okay,” he breathed. “We’s all set. You two meets in the center and you kicks the fat boy in the nuts just once. Don’t let him do you back! I telled him you’d be instructed to faint-and-perry, so he won’t be ready. It’s what we calls ‘a internal double-cross’, just like what you done on him what taked it for us.” His eyes sizzled. “You remember how to pull a fast one now, don’t you, Senator?”

The prisoners were pushed face to face. Malachi released Izzy, who stood sagging; an abandoned marionette.

“Right in the nuts!” Micah hissed, and backed away.

After half a minute Izzy opened his puffy, oil-soaked eyes. Trembling all over, he threw out his arms, sobbed, “Oh…Hammer!” and fell into the professor’s wide embrace.

“F-f-forfeit!” Malachi screamed, stamping in ever-widening circles while Amantu stroked Izzy’s filthy crown.

“Forfeit my hoary white arse!” Micah socked Amantu upside the head. The professor didn’t budge. Cussing up a storm, the brute tore off his gloves and reached past a torn-gold shoulder for Izzy’s collar. He was absolutely stunned when Amantu, still gripping Izzy in one arm, turned half-around and backhanded him right across the face. The two stood chin to chin, their eyes fast.

“Know good fighting blood,” the Hammer said evenly, “when you ‘smells’ it.”

Malachi shrieked with anticipation.

“Sometime,” Micah mumbled. “Sometime soon.”

Picking up on the excitement, the hundreds of babbling crawlers made for the source, mucking up the ring in the process. Malachi waded through the prostrate swarm hissing, braining as many as he could reach with a torch-head.

Micah grabbed an old man and worked him over furiously for Malachi’s sake, watching the stalwart professor all the while.

Amantu turned away.

With Malachi distracted, Abel was able to rejoin his friends.

The reformed Group, cowed by torches, were caroming billiard balls knocked wall-to-wall through the mob. The flow halted at the opening to a low, unlit cave, where men and women began flogging themselves and coughing out strange garbled sentences, apparently directed to the tiny cave’s interior. Inside it was absolutely black.

Micah threw his left arm around Amantu’s neck, his right arm around the necks of Abel and Izzy, and pulled all three together until the men’s crowns were touching. He was an immensely strong man, and he stank terribly, even in this foul place. He laid his bone-white chin on the moist nest of their contiguous heads and called into the little hole.

“We gone and captured us the Barberus! Caught him and his pretty fairy-mates up in the Citydel. He’s been taked to the Stone Hollow now, but Mama’ll be wanting the little-dots on these three flitty-flight fancies.” He gave Amantu a big smacking kiss on his hot woolly crown, and with that the Group were kicked headlong into the dark.

They immediately drew into a tight seated huddle, panting frantically, nursing their sores while their eyes adjusted. Bad as it was outside, this little hellhole reeked vilely.

Micah, crouching in the entrance, spat out, “Don’t even think about leaving till he’s done with you! You make us chase you again and I swears to the almighty Soul we’ll put an end to you, splickety-splat, and just where we catches ye. So keeps your butts level and your eyes straight ahead. We’ll be right here waiting, and boy, will we ever be watching.”

At a barked command, Malachi hunched just outside the cave’s mouth, using his spread cloak to block the light.

Izzy shuddered as he clung. “This abuse must end! I can’t brea--I can’t brea--I can’t brea--”

“Hang on, man!” Abel whispered. “I’m right here.”

Izzy slapped him furiously. “‘Right here’! Where were you ten minutes ago, when I and the Hammer were standing off a madman?”

Abel smacked him right back. “Getting my teeth singed, you miserable little turncoat.” He craned and squinted in the dark. “What did he mean, ‘done with’ us? Until who’s done with us?”

The Group stopped as they were. A primitive dread of dens and lairs made them read strange shapes out of common contours. Every little nook and protuberance demanded varying measures of attention, but soon all eyes were fixed on a single, far too regular bulge that seemed to be pumping out of the pitch.

The Possle approached in lunges and slithers, his grotesque body dipping and rising side-to-side. He was unable to move otherwise, as all four limbs had been amputated long ago, leaving simple chubby outgrowths at the shoulders and hips. There were no eyes, only black sockets that appeared to search the dark. As the men backed away the heaving horror froze, and for perhaps half a minute the head felt the cave, rolling left and right a centimeter at a time. It took Abel to break the silence.

“You poor wretch. Who did this to you?”

The Possle came directly at him, waving his stumps for balance. When he was a yard away he stopped and raised his head like a sea lion. His struggles to articulate were expressed in sucks and whistles.

“Mama say Possle stay, serve Mama: good limb make bad Possle. Mama say Possle not see elsewhere: good eye see bad thing. Mama say Possle talk too much.” He showed them the wagging nub of his severed tongue. “Now good Possle.” He flopped round to each man in turn. “Mama say Possle test all man--one man, two man, three. All man three man--sell thief to Punchus Pilot. Mama say thief belong Mama.”

“Oh Mercies!” Izzy cried. “Shake me! Wake me!”

The Possle wheeled on his belly, his ears pricked.

“Ti…tus…Mack,” Abel over-enunciated. “Friend. Friend of three man.” The Possle’s head swiveled at the thorax. “The man’s no thief, for Christ’s sake. He’s a brilliant astronomer. All this nonsense is ingrained behavior. You people are chasing shadows.”

The Possle bumped noses. “Mama say thief belong Mama!”

Abel recoiled from the stench. “Well, tell her he’s ours, damn you! And let us go. He needs medical attention.”

Izzy rocked back and forth, his forearms clamped against his ears. “Oh, man! Oh, man! Oh man, oh man, oh man! Who, or what, is Mama?”

The Possle bobbed as he nodded. “Mama Mary. Mary Mama. Messiah marry Mama. Rat eat Messiah. Mama gnaw, Mama gnaw.” With a horrible snuffling sound, the Possle did a nosedive, slamming his face straight into the ground. When he looked back up, scuffed and bleeding, his feral expression was twisted into something like joy. “Good God! God good! God make Mary! God make Messiah! God make Possle!”

Abel’s eyes burned in the dark. “What God? It’s like we’ve been trying to tell you people--you’ve been suckered. We’ve all been suckered! There is nothing supernatural; it’s an old fairy tale. Your behavior belowground is the consequence of a primitive set of tenets contrived aboveground.” He straightened and scooched forward. “Now you’re gonna listen to me, pal!

“A long time ago a mob of religious morons followed some politically-embarrassed lunatic, and he convinced them to smash up our entire technological system. He brought a bunch of them down here, where they adhered to his senile rewrite of their codification, which was probably a pretty good thing before the idiot bastardized it. All of this crap grew out of all of that crap! For Christ’s sake, man--get to a schoolhouse, get to a hospital, get to a loony bin. Izzy, give him your card.”

The Possle’s head ratcheted around and he began to rock in a slow, contemplative spiral.

“Um, Josh,” Izzy mumbled. “This is probably the last guy we need to antagonize right now. I recognize the symptoms.” He smiled and raised his voice. “We’re just having a friendly little confab here, not a dialogue. Isn’t that so, Mr. Possle?” He grinned until it hurt, spreading his arms high and wide. “We all know there’s a God. He’s just kind of hard to see in all this darkness, that’s all.”

“God here,” the Possle insisted, rolling side to side to indicate universality. Coupled with his meditative rocking, the rolling threw him into a short tailspin. His brain locked up. After a long, creepy minute he snapped out of it and rose bolt-upright. “God good! Good God! God create Colony. God give Possle all this.”

Abel blew it. “Good! Good? How…how dare you! What kind of a fu--what sort of--what manner of divinity would sanction such suffering?”

The Possle stopped rocking.

Amantu broke in hurriedly. “One divinely apologetic, of that I am certain! A holy line, you say! A dynasty? That is most--that is indescribably fascinating! Please press on, Mr. Possle. Do tell us more.”

The Possle jounced about until he was facing the professor, moved his head up and down and all around. It took Amantu a minute to realize he was being sniffed. The head moved in closer. When that nauseating countenance was only six inches away, the eye sockets seemed to deepen and the mouth opened wide. The Possle fell into a cobra-like swaying, mesmerized by his own stupidity. Using only his pelvic muscles, he drew himself upright and bobbed at each man in turn.

“Judas one, Judas two, Judas three! All Judas go Mama!”

“But,” Amantu tried. “Sir. It is not our intention to interf--”

“Judas!” the Possle screamed. “Mama, Mama! Judas, Judas! Mama, Mama!” Malachi stepped aside, allowing light to flood the cave. “Judas, Judas!” the Possle wailed. “Mama, Mama!” Now a nervous clamor arose in the tunnel, growing in volume and passion with each repetition:

“Mama, Mama! Mama, Mama!”

“That’ll do ’er!” said Micah. He and Malachi scrambled in, thrusting their torches at the turning men. The big man waved his directly in the Possle’s face. The Group shied and pushed away. “Told you he was a looker. Now, up on your twos, you nasty nihilists. We’s off to the Cavalry, and when we--”

He was cut off by an explosive surge at the cave entrance. Men and women were fighting to squeeze inside, their arms and faces flapping about in the manner of sea anemones. “Judas all!” the Possle shrieked. The plug of bodies went mad.

Micah stuck his torch in the Possle’s nightmarish face.

“Shut your hole!”

Malachi used his own torch to press back the crowd, and, once the entrance was cleared, Micah kicked the Group out one by one. He grabbed Amantu’s collar and shoved him against the tunnel wall. “It’s party time, you big sweet parasite. Cross your knees and prays you dies, ’cause you gots a date with Mama!”

“Mama!”

In a minute Abel and Izzy were riding a wave of rabid humanity, with Malachi scrabbling underfoot.

Off to the side, Micah was driving Amantu by ramming him against the wall with his right shoulder, then ricocheting to clear their path with his left.

The professor regained his focus as they ran. On one of these inward thrusts he surprised Micah by grabbing his arm and using the impetus to send him slamming into the hot rock.

Micah recovered quickly, snatching Amantu’s arm in kind and flinging him at the naked flow. Amantu was knocked right back at him.

The two found themselves whirling in and out of the mass, banging hard against the walls, spinning into the fray. Conditioned reflex caused those nearest to be thrown into fits of passion; they struck themselves and one another, bit at arms and legs. There was a minute of complete confusion; of slipping on rolling limbs and flailing every which way, and then Micah and Amantu were toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose, both heavyweights throwing bombs to the head that neither man felt.

A wild left from Amantu tore off Micah’s hood, ripping out the joining staples and revealing the balding, very human psychopath beneath. He followed up with a roundhouse right to the ear that sent the brute sprawling among a flurry of stampeding legs. Micah bounded back to his feet with his bleeding face ablaze, his hands scrabbling for the professor’s eyes.

And now, for the first time in his life, Amantu just snapped. He whaled blindly with both fists until a random haymaker caught the giant on the jaw and put him flat on his back. The professor came down hard, straddling Micah’s chest. The two went rolling underfoot, and when they surfaced in the muddle each had the other by the throat.

For the longest time both squeezed furiously without breathing. Micah was sprawled on his back, his head propped on a rock, Amantu’s knees planted squarely beside his ribs. The fighters’ faces darkened, their snarls widened, their screaming eyes bugged out in a death struggle that went way beyond personal survival. When Amantu felt himself going, he blew out his razor breath, jerked up his arms to break Micah’s grip, and slammed both locked fists straight down on the monster’s rising purple face.

The force of the blow split Micah’s skull on the stone like a ripe pomegranate, turning his raging expression into a meek splash of passive surprise. Blood spewed from his mouth and nostrils, his chin shot out at an angle, his eyes rolled back in his skull.

Amantu heaved himself off and staggered into the mob.

Abel and Izzy went bobbing by on a raft of shoulders--Amantu croaked out their names, but in the din was unsure he heard himself. There had to be a thousand people fighting along; spawning salmon, all crying out, “Mama!” in the manner of retarded children. Amantu laid into the crashing bodies; first out of desperation, then out of rage and disgust. The hot sweaty flesh smacked his mouth and eyes, the raving faces made him snarl as he swung.

He came stumbling into the brightly lit Heart without realizing it, still indiscriminately throwing his fists.

The human flow ceased abruptly at the entrance, so that Amantu appeared to be ejected, rather than self-propelled, from its midst. Hordes of immature rats swarmed past him, followed by a peppery explosion of hissing and squealing bats, but the professor hardly noticed.

He was utterly exhausted. Any man in his condition would have instinctively grabbed at whatever would stand him, but the scene in that chamber was so mind-boggling--nothing could be so--

…never had he imagined…

Amantu’s whole frame collapsed and he dropped to his knees.