The Empire of Gut and Bone by M. T. Anderson Read Free Book Online

your way to New Norumbega and the palace of the Emperor!”

Six
    T he capital city was far, far away, in a clutch of hearts that hung in the distant reaches of the Great Body. The sled was too slow, and in any case, the ducts that led to the capital never connected directly to the gut that cradled Pflundt. The boys were told they would have to travel through the flux. They were given a picnic hamper for the ride.
    Surrounded by a set of guards in metal helmets, Dantsig led them deep into a cavern. Lanterns lit the walls of a great shaft that dropped straight down beneath the city. A platform was suspended by ropes. When they stepped on, Dantsig pulled a lever, and they all descended.
    “There’s a valve,” he explained, “so we can get into the flux.”
    “Flux?” said Kalgrash. “What’s flux?”
    “There are seven major fluids in the Great Body,” said Dantsig. “Ichor, yellow bile, the hard aliment, the sublime aliment, flux, lux effluvium, and brunch.
    “No one knows what any of them are or what any of them do. Some of them might be food. Some of them might be blood or saliva. I don’t know. Who cares? The flux doesn’t move anymore. People say it used to. Maybe because the Great Body is dead. Or we might just be between heartbeats. Or flux might not be blood at all.” Dantsig shrugged and spat over the edge of the descending platform.
    “Adding your own fluids to the mix?” Gregory said.
    Dantsig smiled lazily. “I generate liquid,” he said. “It condenses in my mouthbox. Design flaw.”
    Brian asked politely, “What were you made for?”
    Dantsig shrugged. “Exploration. What about you?” Dantsig grinned wolfishly at the boy.
    Kalgrash offered, “I was made to ask riddles and smite.”
    “Crazy.”
    The platform had reached the bottom of the pit.
    They’d come to rest next to a huge brass dome — the valve into the flux. They entered the dome through reinforced doors.
    They were in an air lock, a docking bay for submarines. The walls were riveted together. Small capsules with propellers and rudders hung from brackets. Men and women in old diving suits clanked around by hatches. Portholes looked out into some green mess in which the beams from electric lights slowly bumbled.
    The guards accompanied them to a gangway. It led down through a tube and into a sub: a cramped space filled with tanks and pipes and spigots and dials andnozzles. Marines, frowning, took up positions around the cabin. Dantsig offered the boys benches upholstered in torn red plastic. A few of the crew, dressed in blue bodysuits and finned helmets, ran past calling unintelligibly to one another.
    In a few minutes, there was a jolt, and the submarine moved out into the flux. The deck hummed.
    “Whoa,” said Gregory, pressing his palms against the metal wall. “It tickles. The vibration.” He put his hand to his mouth. “It makes my teeth itch.”
    Kalgrash offered, “I could remove them for you.”
    “Naw,” said Gregory. “What would you do without my winning grin? It would be like the sun had gone out in your heart.”
    Dantsig asked Brian over the din of the engine, “What’s with them?”
    “They fight a lot.” Brian was too embarrassed to explain that Gregory made fun of Kalgrash for being an automaton. He didn’t want Dantsig to know and to hate Gregory.
    The sub nosed through the darkness of the vein, its lights picking out growths and shy, slithering things.
    Brian pointed at something finny doing backflips to escape the illumination. “Are they part of the body? Or are they like parasites?”
    “Uh, yeah, kid, we’re all like parasites. Hey, will you let me spit in here?”
    Gregory said, “Let’s keep the liquid outside.”
    “You’re the one who’s seventy-eight percent water, squirt.”
    “But the other twenty-two percent is charm.”
    “He can add,” muttered Kalgrash in surprise.
    Brian was worried that his two friends no longer even pretended to like each other. It made him miserable.