WATCHED BY COWS

Ganoa, a fertile land filled with roaming cattle below and puffy clouds above.

Of course the cows don’t so much roam as much as stand patiently. They can feel the change in the air, the thrum in the ground, and read the movements of the birds. They know what’s coming, they can already see it peeking over the lip of the horizon, and they’re decided to enjoy themselves before it arrives. They’re arranged in a circle, telling their joke about humans.

Cows joke a lot about bipeds in general, and humans in particular. They only have one joke, and it’s a mean one, and whenever a cow looks you straight in the eye over a fence you can bet it’s thinking about the joke. It moos out of amoosement.

The more philosophical cows sometimes wonder aloud what humans would say if they ever heard it told. The general consensus is you had to be there.

A ship sailed through the sky like a scream in the night, trailing smoke. Some cows looked up, but soon turned their attention back to the center of the circle. They didn’t want to miss the telling of the joke. It was almost at the punchline.

“Whatthefuckholyfuckshitholyshitholyshit—”

The girl screamed on the navigator seat with her feet on the dashboard. It wasn’t the most secure bracing position. For one, it risked lodging a kneecap somewhere in her frontal lobe upon impact.

Des had long lost control of Slipstream, which was completely unresponsive. She’d been in ship crashes before, too many to count. But that had been before. She’d never tested her survivability in a situation like this without a spell inhabiting her mind. Somehow, Des wasn’t hopeful.

Des wasn’t afraid, however. Her brain turned that off almost automatically. Turned off wasn’t the correct expression – it forgot to be afraid, or at least to feel the sort of fear that paralyzed the limbs and made thoughts into a jumbled mess. It focused instead on a very simple self-questionnaire.

Are you in danger? Y/N

It was a useless question. It was never not Y, with her.

Can you do anything about it? Y/N

Des looked around. Cows were passing them by at an astonishing speed and the scenery was approaching just as quickly. Faint blue lines were coming up in the ship's display, but nothing definite, nothing that she could use. The hyper archaeologist hanger-on was flailing uselessly and screaming her heart out, begging her to do something.

N.

Is there a reasonable chance for survival? Y/N

Well. They’d left the pirates behind when they veered away from the highway, and the ship had a lot – well, some emergency mechanisms. Those were factory, however, and mostly useful for selling the idea of safety rather than actually providing safety. Would seatbelts make a difference when they crashed into the earth at the speed they were going?

On the other hand, Des tended to get last chances, one after another. They dropped onto her plate With astonishing regularity.

Y/N. Could go either way.

The questionnaire returned the solution it always did:

Don’t panic. Everything is under control, or so far out of control that panicking would be useless. Focus on your breath and drink plenty of water.

Not for the first time in a rather busy life, Des pondered the utility of memorizing a questionnaire that only provided one answer.

She looked at the girl. Her sunglasses had flown off a while ago, so there were no barriers between them. Des wondered when had been the last time that someone had sat in the navigator seat, and then buried that question in a deep, dark place where no one would never remember to go looking.

Des reached out and grabbed the girl’s hand. Their eyes locked. She tried smiling, communicating by touch and look alone that everything would be alright. Eventually. Philosophically. She felt the girl – Kae – understood what she meant. There was that, at least, some understanding in the end—

The heads-up display came on. Slipstream shook, hummed, then roared to life. Des released Kae’s hand as if stung and dived for the controls. She wrestled with all her strength to bring the ship up, up, up…

Crash.

They hit the ground. They didn’t die. Good news, unless...

Drag.

The bottom wings gouged lines into the fertile earth. Curious cows watched them go by.

Bounce?

The ship was alive. It strained towards the sky, jumped up a few meters and managed, held, suspended through pure belief and a wish upon a star.

Belief trembled, cracked. Slipstream began to list forward. This time there was no stopping it.

*

“See, I didn’t think we were going to survive that.”

Kae stretched in the sun. The orb had finally escaped from behind the blue sheen of the distant but advancing Wave. The light that streamed down from above was golden and pure.

Des didn’t answer. She was somewhere inside the ship. From time to time, Kae could hear bangs and curses. She’d tried offering help, but Des was moody and angry, and had pushed her back outside.

So Kae sat down in the sun and turned the object in her hands, thinking and watching. A few cows had approached to investigate. They looked a bit too buddy-buddy for Kae’s taste.

After a particularly loud curse and the sigh that followed it, Des stepped outside. Kae could tell from the way her feet stepped on the two tall trenches that Slipstream had dug on landing that she was still mad. No one stepped so intently when they were feeling happy and carefree. Kae hid the object between her hands.

“How is it?” Kae asked as Des stepped around her. Her hair was caught in a ponytail and she was wearing only a grease-smeared tank top. No sunglasses this time. And how can everything look so good on you?

“She’s going to be fine,” Des answered. “She’s self-repairing right now. Won’t fly too well for a while, but she’ll fly.”

Self-repairing? Damn. What hardware is that?

“Then why all the cursing?” she looked up into the Guardian’s blue eyes. They looked nice in the sun.

Des pursed her lips.

“I don’t like seeing her like that. That’s all. You’re remarkably quiet for someone who was screaming so much fifteen minutes ago."

“Hey, first ship crash,” Kae blushed, pushing a strand of loose hair behind an ear. “Saw-ree if I couldn’t keep my composure.”

Des walked off a little distance, then walked back again, peering into the distance.

“No pirates?”

“None that I could see,” Kae answered. “Maybe they gave up.”

“Doesn’t seem like Shadows,” Des replied dubiously.

Kae shrugged at that. Des continued her slow walk, taking in their surroundings and keeping her gaze carefully away from the Wave in the horizon.

“Do these cows look a bit suspicious to you?” Kae asked suddenly.

“Y’know, I was about to say. They seem… Weird. Somehow.”

“Everyone’s a bit weirder now that the world is about to end, aren’t they? I mean, OK, maybe this is normal to you, but I don’t normally steal from museums in my free time.”

“What do you do, then?”

“Thesis. Atlantis Uni.”

Des nodded, looked off into the distance, the cows, everywhere the Wave wasn’t.

Silence hung between them like a veil. Kae focused on her fingernails, cracked, scratched and a complete disaster. She tried to ignore the tension in the air, the unasked question looming.

“So,” Des said. “Where can I drop you off?”

Here we go.

“Actually,” Kae said. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“And what, leave you here?” Des said. There was an edge to her voice. The joke came out strained, annoyed.

“Or take me with you. I’m writing my thesis on spells. Contact with a Guardian would make all the difference. You could tell me about...”

“No.” Standing over her, Des crossed her arms. “Whatever you think this is, it isn’t it.”

“I can be useful!” Kae protested. “I identified the spell when Shadows’ dowser couldn’t—”

“Like I keep saying, my dowser is better,” Des said. “I don’t need an intern, and I don’t have the space—”

“I checked your trailer. You do have space.” Kae spoke quickly. “Honestly, that thing is bigger than it seemed from the outside…”

“Kid.”

It was like Des’ aura had a physical component, one that bore down on Kae like a miniature Wave. She looked down.

“Just tell me where to drop you off, alright? I won’t leave you here, but I’m not taking you with me, either.”

When Kae didn’t answer, Des sighed and walked around her, bound back for Slipstream.

“Do you want to open this?” Kae stood up. Time for desperate gambits.

Des turned. She focused on Kae’s outstretched hand, on the containment sphere she was holding in a shaky grip. Des' eyes narrowed.

“Did you pick that off the floor? After the crash?"

“I pinched this off you when you picked me up in the museum,” Kae said, defiant. “You need to be more careful with your pockets.”

“Seems to me I need to be more careful with my company,” Des replied. She nodded to the sphere and cracked her knuckles. “Alright. Do you really want to do this again?”

“No need to threaten me,” Kae said.

Des stopped, hesitated.

“I wasn’t—”

“Whatever. Take it.”

The sphere arced through the air. Des caught it one-handed, looking a bit surprised.

“That was your one bargaining chip,” she commented, frowning a little as if she didn’t understand.

Kae shook her head. A few more cows had gathered around them, hungry for drama.

Well, they’re gonna get it.

“My bargaining chip is knowledge,” Kae said. “That sphere is impossible to open if you don’t know what you’re doing. You need me.”

Des tossed the sphere in air with a practiced flick of her wrist and caught it again. She seemed to be considering the argument. She shrugged.

“How do you know I want to open it? Maybe the First Guard wants to keep it safe.”

“Couple of problems with that theory,” Kae said, acid dripping from her tongue as she lifted a finger. “One, it’s the end of the world. Safe is a relative word that will be meaningless in a few months. And two,” she lifted a second finger. The middle one. “You’re not First Guard. No spell, like you said.”

Des’ easy smile remained in place, unwavering. It was the rest of her face that hardened in place. She tossed the sphere in the air again, quite a way higher this time.

“Maybe I lied.”

Kae sneered.

“Sure. We could debate hypotheticals all day long. But here’s what I know: you’re never going to open that containment sphere without my help.”

Des caught the little ball in her hand.

“Sorry," she said. "I’m calling your bluff. Stay or come along, but you’re getting out at the next city we arrive in. By force if necessary.”

Des turned around and kept walking. The ship began to bulge in, ready to receive her.

“Do you see those markings?” Kae yelled. “That’s a riddle in Higher Titonian. Most translators are rubbish, and the ones that aren't are dead!”

"Sounds like I definitely don't need you, then."

Des didn’t stop. Kae watched her turned back and felt the anger rise.

“That sphere’s been closed for four thousand years! You think you’re gonna be the one to open it? You’re not!”

The woman was a walking stone wall, as flexible as bricks. A door opened in Slipstream's side, and Des slipped inside without slowing.

Kae bit her lip then turned back and sat down on the ground, fuming. She was blinking back tears, which only made her angrier. Why couldn’t she confident and composed? Like Des? She looked into the distance, where, framed by the rising Wave, she saw a ship appear. A ship with a mass of roiling black on top, like it was having a particularly bad hair day.

Great. Pirates. Maybe they’d give her a ride. She was not taking Des' pity ride.

Behind her, Slipstream began to hum.

Fine. Leave.

The Wave was still far away. If the pirates simply followed after Des, then Kae could walk to the highway and find someplace else. If she could get a ship she could continue the roadtrip as planned, and then…

Oh, crap. The ship.

She’d left it behind in Eletes. It was an old unsafe beat-up an ex had sold her for next to nothing, but still. It was her ship. It would have been caught in the Wave by now. Nothing to do about it. Kae had made that decision when she’d told Des she’d hitchhiked there.

Lies upon lies. Why was she so intent on following this woman? Other than the priceless spell she carried, that was.

Something nagged at Kae's attention. The ship was humming, but it wasn’t the hum of an engine warming up. It was slow, deliberate. The self-repairing function? Kae turned around.

Slipstream was glowing. It was faint, almost invisible in the sunlight, but little strands of blue light traced patterns on its shell. Kae frowned. Cosmetic upgrade? Des didn’t feel like the sort of person who’d go for that.

Suddenly, the door-mouth of the ship swirled open. Des was framed in the round entrance, looking defeated.

She peered into the mid distance first.

“What’d I say?” she asked. “Shadows never gives up.”

She looked at Kae.

Kae looked back.

Des rolled her eyes.

“Come on,” the… no, not Guardian. Des said. “We’ll discuss terms on the air.”

Kae let her go back into the ship before allowing herself a grin. She didn’t know exactly what had changed the woman’s mind, but whatever it was, she thanked it for it worked. The door stayed open invitingly, and didn't fold back into itself until Kae had stepped inside. She noticed the hum was gone. The ship was silent.

A cow mooed her applause.