To pass the time, to remember their humanity, to keep from clinging to each other like affection-starved kittens, they conversed, largely regarding non-essentials. How many other Bands the Noid held that they hadn't visited, and what Trans-forms were in them. How the trams and the troop carriers protected non-Sprites form the Trans-forms. Why this sector was called the Noid, anyway. And so on, and so forth.
Diana didn't really know how many Bands there were. She wasn't certain they had ever been counted, even. She knew the more dangerous, and some of the more unusual, the majority of which they had indeed passed through. Basically, she knew enough to steer clear of the place, except under orders, or in extremity. If human, but I'm a Sprite, now....
The vehicles don't protect people, or at least not well, she told Sindy. That's why Sprites patrol the line. Which reminds me, what's green and has sixteen legs?
I don't know, is it crawling up my back?
No, you don't have a back, but it is floating up behind you.
Flaring, Sindy chased off the particularly ugly Trans-form Diana had indicated, and then returned for the answer to the next inconsequential question.
I'm not sure why this place is called the Noid, Diana pulsed, with the Sprite equivalent of a shrug. I heard the Green Hornet say once it was from an old joke he had never really understood, some commercial on TV with the slogan "Avoid the Noid." And sensible people do avoid the Noid. But why that name in preference to another, I don't know. Perhaps because it rhymes with Void, and this is a void.
So why not call it that? Sindy queried.
There's another sector already called the Void in the Eastern Reach, it's the one just the other side of Mad Science.
And so it went. Both companions were feeling increasingly edgy, and ready to chuck it all and vanish into the Noid, or start sounding out the other on her feelings, or both....
And then the troop carrier came. The color of a school bus, but more on the order of a tank truck in shape, and of a locomotive in size, it inched slowly down the tramway from the hazy, distant Quarantine gate, dwarfing the fragile golden thread on which it balanced in the void, impossibly resembling an elephant on a trapeze rope. Its emergence into the sector was accompanied by a flurry of activity from both Trans-forms seeking to pry these new victims out of their can, and from Sprites warding them off. A few Trans-forms got through, briefly, but were baffled by the transport's armored surfaces long enough for additional Sprites to drive them away. Diana pulsed at Sindy to be ready--the latter nervously directed their perceptions behind them, to the East Wing Gate they flared so near. They could have gone through without the transport, but not without having to account for their presence, as two Sprites, outside their home sector. She turned back just in time to see Diana zip away to intercept a particularly huge Cellulite, the size of a whale, at least, sluggishly grazing the edge of the cleared skies around the tramway, just outside of any Band. What's she doing? Sindy thought, observing as the Amazon dotted this way and that, attempting to divert the glowing fat cloud's course. No other Sprites noted her activity, or they would have flocked around to stop it--she was herding the monstrosity toward the tramline! But all other Sprites in the vicinity were too busy defending the tram perceive this new danger. Slowly, the cloud turned....
Diana was back. A diversion, she pulsed in response to Sindy's question. It should arrive here just about the same time as the transport....
It was horrible, almost like watching the slow, inevitable collision of an iceberg with an ocean liner. By the time the other Sprites realized the danger, due to the lesser Trans-forms taking fright and bolting, it was almost too late. Then all flashed away to take on this new threat to the tramline.
All but two.
Now? asked Sindy.
Now! pulsed Diana.
Two white-hot points of light faded into invisibility, and then, unseen, sank toward the transport, passing effortlessly through its armored exterior....
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Tue Sep 23 01:01:15 2003
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