We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Howard

August 2344

Jabberwocky

We were over the lake, and the floaters were greedily sucking up water. The central reservoir on the Hunter had grown visibly and was in danger of developing an outflow stream across the top. But the Hunter was a big, mature floater with a lot of tendrils. Some of the smaller floaters were still well short of full.

Since the Hunter was ahead of schedule, my trawling crew had decided to try a few casts. Results were encouraging, if somewhat skimpy. We’d caught some lake fish, which at least showed the system worked. But we’d never feed the population with that kind of take. And we were barely moving when we trawled the net. It could still break at speed.

The local dragons had stopped heating rocks and were letting the existing piles cool off. The next step was to cut the tendrils, and we were listening to a senior floater-herder describe where and how to cut. Obviously, it had to be done in-flight, which immediately complicated things. The essential maneuver was to approach the dangling tendril, then roll ninety degrees and swipe at it with a machete-like tool. The machetes were raw iron, as the dragons hadn’t developed alloying yet, which meant they didn’t hold much of an edge. The cut had to be done cleanly, or you’d not only fail the cut but throw yourself into an uncontrolled yaw. And probably drop the machete, which is why they had tethers.

Then there was a shout. “Eruption!” We all looked landward to see the top of a hill splitting and emitting a huge black cloud. It appeared the volcanic wave had arrived.

“Bridget?” I intercommed.

The reply came back in a few seconds.