would be close to two miles, and far exceeded anything Haha could be carrying onboard his storage compartment. Baffling as it might seem, he had to be manufacturing equipment from his components, or perhaps from the materials he was gathering. The theory of transmuting and refining the material made me want to unplug my brain. Haha’s abilities were endless.
I tested the rope, dangling from the nearest piton and it held well enough. It was strong, and slightly flexible. His idea, I suppose, was to lower a long rope, perhaps a mile or more, from our floating island to the much larger one below, but the winds were too strong and I couldn’t see a secure way to traverse the distance between the floating islands.
“Cool,” I started, waiting for the explosion, “I’m going to head down with Haha.”
“You’re crazy!” Cool protested, throwing his arms wide as if the air supported his assertion.
“We can’t stay here, Cool, and I think rabbit head is onto something.”
“Dude, it’s Haha’s fault were here!”
“I doubt that,” Apogee spat, favoring me with a look that could crack diamonds.
I looked back down to Haha, so far down and moving so fast I couldn’t imagine catching up to him.
“Well, you can either come with me, or you can stay here with him,” I motioned towards Zundergrub and swung over, following the Haha down the proverbial rabbit hole.
* * *
The first thing to know about climbing is that it’s real hard, especially if you’ve never done it before and in particular, if you’re going down in a reverse decline, where you would find footing was farther inside, or at an angle away from where you had your hands. The natural tendency is to slip back and as an absolute rookie, I almost fell a few more times.
Haha’s rope, which I discovered was elastic webbing surrounding a metal wire, was what kept me from falling to my death more than once. I could have used gloves and spikes on my boots to keep my sweaty hands and feet from slipping.
Looking down, Haha had reached the farthest point of rock that was still attached to the main face, with dozens of massive boulders trailing off behind it like floating satellites.
It took me twice as long to reach Haha as it took him to get down there in the first place, and it wasn’t until I was within earshot of him that we were attacked.
A massive creature swung close, interested by my movement against the rock wall, looking for a quick meal at my expense. I never realized the danger; my attention was on not slipping, and keeping my grip on Haha’s rope. Then he yelled something unintelligible in the distance and wind between us, and opened fire with his plasma weapon.
I gripped tight and turned away from the wall to my horror.
The monster was the size of a city block and looked like what you would get if you crossed a manta ray and an amoeba, with the wide wingspan trailing pseudopods behind. Its eyes were about my size, atop its head, and stared at me as if trying to comprehend what I was. When it decided I was edible, the creature split open its cavernous mouth revealing a great maw, wide enough to fit a dozen men my size standing side to side, lined with thousands of ten foot tall, rear-hooked teeth.
I had nothing to defend myself with, or anywhere to go. I could let go, but then death would be a slow descent into an endless abyss. There was a boulder, a few feet from me, jutting outward and almost self-contained. It was a different material, some sort of granite instead of the rock around it, stuck to the rock face. If I could reach it, and pull it out, the boulder would make a decent weapon. But it was too far, I had no time.
Haha’s plasma bolts and machine gun fire bothered the beast, but it still carried its forward momentum toward me, the mouth widening at the prospect of an easy meal.
Then something dropped from atop it. I couldn’t tell what, as all I could see were teeth and pink flesh, and that reeking smell of imminent death. But the beast recoiled violently, turning away with quickness I didn’t think it had. A figure lay atop the beast, beating on one of its eyes with a magnesium softball bat.
Cool Hand.
But the beast still had some tricks up his sleeve, reaching forward with its trailing pseudo pods to pull