Gob's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

The saucer's hatch swallowed Gob whole. Inside, the peppermint figure set him on a bench and turned to a wall of levers. Gob shut his mouth and killed his light. In the dark, he pressed against a curved panel and found a seam. He pushed. The panel folded outward. Gob dropped through and landed on cold ground below the parked craft. He crawled under the hull and stopped. "I need a plan," he whispered. His parents had taught him a trick for this, a rule for when everything went wrong. He reached for it. The words slipped away. He could not remember Plan A at all. So Gob made a new one. He cracked his mouth and let a thin blade of light out. It struck a wall of sticks and moss ahead, a small castle patched with mud. On its top tower sat a beacon that pulsed red. He understood then. The robots aboard the fleet aimed their killing beams at whatever the beacon marked. If he climbed the tower and smashed the light, the beams would lose their eye. Gob ran for the mossy keep. A beam swept the ground behind him and turned dirt to glass. He did not look back. He squeezed through the crooked gate and found a ladder of lashed branches inside the tower. He climbed. Moss came loose in his grip. Twice his foot slipped, and twice he caught the rung. Above him, the peppermint figure appeared at the tower window. It must have seen him bolt. It reached down with a white glove, teapot swinging at its belt. "Come back, little light," it said, sweet and slow. Gob flared his mouth. The blast lit the peppermint head white. The figure jerked its arm away and lost its grip on the sill. Gob pulled himself onto the tower top. The beacon pulsed at arm's reach, a lamp caged in sticks. Two saucers hung close, their rims spinning up bright. They were aiming. Gob had one breath. He opened his mouth as wide as it went and poured every drop of light into the beacon. Then he grabbed the caged lamp and tore it from its post. The beacon died. Above him, the two saucers' beams fired into empty tower and struck the peppermint figure where it clung below. The blast knocked the striped figure off the keep. It fell into the dark and did not climb back. Gob stood alone on the tower, the dead beacon in his hands. The killing beams had lost their mark. But the saucers did not leave. They turned, slow, and their rims swung toward the small light still glowing in his mouth. He had blinded the beacon and made himself the brightest thing for miles. Below, the fleet drifted on toward the hills, toward Fluroess and Potbelly. Gob clamped his mouth shut and dropped flat against the moss.