He made love to me like he meant it. He carried me across the swamp. He immediately played along when we were first observed by Marshie, instead of attacking her physically, which he was itching to do.
It was real.
It must have been.
But it couldn’t last.
- - -
Bune looks peaceful enough, a massive and vaguely egg-shaped structure that dwarfs even the bobont.
I make it walk a circuit around the colossal spaceship, but there are no holes in it that I can see. So either the girls didn’t try the escape ship yet, or the Plood were right and it won’t work.
Or it worked fine but moves in a different dimension and won’t make a trace in this universe. It’s all possible, because judging from the way Delyah and Ashlynn have talked about it, it’s so weird that even a philosophy major like me gets confused. And I have read Kierkegaard. Or tried to, anyway.
When I try to get the bobont to walk closer to the ship, it stops as if it doesn’t want to.
There’s movement down on the ground.
Trying to stay out of sight, I carefully lean to the side and peer down.
Dragons, no doubt about it. Not that many of them, but even one would be bad. About twenty, I estimate, blocking the way and looking at the dinosaur with lazy interest.
Yeah, I can’t climb down from the bobont right in the middle of a dragon convention. Getting down was always going to be a problem, and one I haven’t given that much thought to. As a last resort, I could probably slide down the tail, but that looks seriously dangerous.
I judge the distance between the bobont’s body and the side of Bune. There’s the door that leads into the ship, right above a wide, sloping ledge I can easily stand on. None of the dragons are climbing on the ship, probably because Bune was made by the enemies that they call the Inferiors and they abhor it.
I look down the bobont’s neck. It could work. If it doesn’t, it’s the last mistake I’ll ever make. And if it does, I’m equally boned if the girls aren’t inside or if the door is locked or just about any little thing goes only slightly wrong.
But I have to try. As far as I know, the girls are in there. And they’re only waiting for me.
And, I remember, they can probably see me right now. There must be someone in the control room, and according to the girls who have been there, from there you have an artificial view around the ship, three hundred and sixty degrees, the full circle.
At any rate, they must be able to see the bobont and wonder what the hell it thinks it’s doing.
I carefully stand up, which is easy enough on the bobont’s flat head. Then I wave with both arms, making myself as visible as possible to the upper part of Bune, while hoping I’m still hidden from the dragons on the ground.
Minutes go past with no visible reaction from the ship.
I’m just about to give up hope when the door opens a small crack, and a man comes out.
It’s a caveman, which doesn’t have to mean anything. I don’t recognize him. He could be a member of the slayer army and totally reliable, or he could be one of those renegade cavemen that Caronerax and I met, those that expected women as their rewards.
The man waves to me, and the dragons move closer to the ship.
I wave back, very briefly.
Well, I have to try. The length should be just enough.
I dangle the butterfly in front of the bobont’s eye, then raise it until it’s hanging right above it.
The bobont slowly lowers its head to get its eye away from the butterfly.
I keep dangling it as I get closer to the ground and to Bune as the bobont stretches its neck out like a mobile crane and keeps lowering its head.
It takes maybe two minutes for it to lower the head to where it’s as close to the spaceship as it will ever be. It’s right up to the door, and the caveman stands there with his hand on his sword, tense and watchful.
I glance to the side. The dragons are starting to climb up onto the sloping bottom of the spaceship, seeing that something interesting is going on. I don’t have much time.
But I can’t make the jump. It’s three feet too far.