THE WHALES WERE TIRED. THEY may have been more maneuverable than the ships but didn’t have comparable energy stores. Snatching gulps of krill helped but Earl’s heart was likely to give out, Bifrost was taking in more water than air, and Bruce was practically useless. Each whale took turns cycling to the rear of the vanguard, and the humans atop them did their best to funnel energy to them, but trying to corral a moving island was tougher than it sounded.
And it seemed that not only was the beast being driven crazy but now it was quite peeved, twice having turned on them before resuming its directed course toward the other world. It had left the Blank behind some time ago. Had even scuttled an oil rig and a fishing supertanker in the same way a large person might not feel a small child bouncing off him.
Now the beast was coming up on a raft in which Eve sat in the lotus trying her best to meditate through all the irritation and anger she and Adam planned to share with Ramses as soon as possible.
She knew the Jetstreams well enough to know their gambit. New York was her home, and that meant a great deal to a wandering soul. The buildings and all within them could burn to fine ash but her ship was there! Not the one buried under the Mount but an actual functioning one. Granted it was protected against anything Man or nature could throw against it, but Godzilla’s grandfather tromping the boroughs hadn’t been part of those safety precautions. She’d need that ship for when the Bimaiy came, and she hadn’t been to an industrialized planet yet where they hadn’t arrived using their quantum engines to pop in through time. And because Leviathan was awake she couldn’t effectively activate and relocate the ship mentally, but she could, and did, focus one word into a blunt, insistent object.
Idiot!
A) Adam on the ship behind her, B) Leviathan’s displacement of the ocean in the distance before her, C) the Jetstream and his efforts a good distance behind that. The raft bobbed and bucked. She needed simplicity in order to focus. She needed to know that there was no fast escape for her nor weaponized protection. Leviathan, somewhere within the folds of its calcified brain, would pick up that immediacy and she could use it to her advantage. The problem with the human world was they were all too distracted, and Buford had done the best job imaginable maintaining that. A single person truly focused could change the face of reality. Eve bore down on the one reality she wanted and tried to give it birth.
When was the last time you walked the earth? You can’t stand them, remember?
In this reality Leviathan acceded to her wishes.
Go back. Leviathan is not cattle to be prodded. What’s even in New York for you?
And the one word that rumbled back, like thunder crossing the waters, and less a word than the deepest pang of desire possible, was *sleep.*
Eve almost opened her eyes. The crafty buggers had convinced it all it had to do was get rid of Nonrich and Buford and its sleep would never again be interrupted by tiny people. The Thoom might have considered cloning Milo Jetstream their greatest coup but it was their biggest cock up yet.
She redoubled her efforts, but doubted she was making much headway against all the Milos.
Adam brought the larger ship alongside her. She abandoned the raft and climbed to the top. Time to move in and start killing clones.