Kaiju Preservation Society(16)

“But nothing is that secret anymore,” Tom continued. “Governments and companies know Kaiju Earth exists. They have to, in order for us to do our work and get our funding. We control the doors to this world. But if you’re ambitious, you can slip past the guards. Or, if you’re ambitious enough, you can blow a hole in the fence if you want to. You just have to know how. And when that happens, and it has happened before, both our worlds are in danger. Kaiju are a danger to humans, sure. But it works the other way, too.”

“They could step on us and not even notice,” Kahurangi said.

“Mosquitoes kill more humans every year than every other type of animal combined,” Tom said to him, “including other humans. And to flip that around, humans have wiped our version of Earth clean of almost every single animal much larger than we are. We hunt them to extinction, and we put ourselves into their environments. Size isn’t the issue. It never was.”

“So we’re the monster police, too,” I said to Tom.

“Correct,” he replied. “The only real question is, who are the monsters?”

“They ask that question in every monster movie, you know. It’s an actual trope.”

“I know,” Tom said. “What does it say about us that it’s relevant every single time they ask it?”





CHAPTER

6




We newbies were all thinking it, but this time it was Niamh who got to it first. “We’re flying in that?”

That in this case was an immense dirigible that looked like it was prototyped by a kaiju-size Leonardo da Vinci in the fifteenth century, and minimally maintained since then. Everyone else on the Tanaka Base Gold Team was going up the gangways like it was no big thing.

“What were you expecting?” Tom, who had directed us to the airfield, asked Niamh.

“Something far less rickety.”

“It’s a solid craft.”

“Mate, that looks like an advertisement for alternate-world tetanus.”

“We did get our shots,” Kahurangi said.

“There are no shots for that,” Niamh countered.

“The Shobijin is totally safe,” Tom said. “In fact, it’s the safest airship you’ll ever be in.”

“Convince me,” Niamh said. “It looks like it will go up Hindenburg-style if I stare at it too hard.”

“One, it uses helium, not hydrogen,” Tom said. “A hydrogen airship would be a bad idea here. So it won’t explode. Two”—he pointed to the frame of airship—“it’s mostly made of two local elements that we have in abundance here, bell wood and kaiju hide. Bell wood grows fast like bamboo, is both incredibly light and strong, and is fire-resistant.”

“How fire-resistant?”

“If you put a log of it on a fire, the fire would die. And as for the kaiju hide—well, not much gets through that. Keeps helium in. Keeps things on the outside out. So, yeah. The Shobijin looks like bad handicrafts. But around here, if you’re going long distances, that’s what you want to be in.”

“Still not convinced,” Niamh said, then started walking toward the airship anyway.

“How do you get the helium?” Kahurangi asked Tom, as we walked. “Are you getting it from natural gas?”

“We mostly use an air distillation process.”

“That’s not very efficient.”

Tom waved at the thick air. “It’s more efficient here. There’s more atmosphere, and helium occurs here more than back home.”

“And the kaiju hide?” Aparna said. “How do you get that?”

“Are you asking if we hunt the kaiju?”

“I was wondering that, yes.”

“Hunting a kaiju would be a very ambitious undertaking,” Tom said, “to use the mildest euphemisms possible. So, no. Kaiju die like anything else does. When they do, we scavenge the body.”

“How does that happen?”

“Very carefully.” We walked up the gangplank into the passenger area of the airship.



* * *



For all that the outside of the Shobijin looked like rotted steampunk, the passenger cabin was nicely appointed. Modern lounger-style airline seats were placed in wide rows facing each other, with enough space between to move around and look out through broad windows. There were small lounge areas fore and aft, with bathroom facilities and snacks, not in the same place. I glanced at Niamh, who seemed slightly more reassured at the interior than the exterior. We found ourselves seats and plopped our stuff down, and stored our carry-ons in cubbyholes in the baseboard.

“Welcome back, fellow Tanaka Base Gold Team members,” said the voice over the Shobijin’s speakers. “This is your pilot, Roderigo Perez-Schmidt, and with me as always is my copilot, Mattias Perez-Schmidt. We’re not related, we’re just married.” This got a low groan of familiarity; I had a feeling Roderigo used this line with every announcement. “Today is a lovely day to travel, and we are delighted to travel with you. Our destination is the delightful Tanaka Base, located in the scenic and lovely Labrador Peninsula, almost straight south from us, a mere two thousand six hundred fifty kilometers’ distant. For you Americans, that’s about one thousand six hundred fifty miles, and also, this is the last time you will hear imperial measures used because like the rest of the civilized universe, Kaiju Earth uses measurements that make logical sense.”