The Chamber in the Sky by M. T. Anderson Page A

to. They gathered prisoners for hypnotism.
    They did not know that the greatest threat to their invasion was three kids who’d passed through this very town a few days before. They didn’t realize that the little dinghy they requisitioned from the docks had recently held the only hope for the Norumbegan Empire.
    The Thusser left ten hours later through the hatches. The town was rubble and half-melted gastric comb. It was empty of people.
    Heraldic bacteria settled in at nightfall to eat what meat had cooked in the explosion. They blinked silently at each other, wolfing down orange loafs.
    A hot wind blew through the forest from somewhere else, and did not stop blowing till morning.

F or a day and a half, the three kids floated down the Pyloric Canal on a crowded barge. The towns that passed on shore were ancient-looking places. Their red towers and gables were misshapen, creased, and streaked with black, as if the stone itself was melting. In fact, they were quarried from the flesh of the stomach, which was not as durable as the muscle of the Dry Heart. It decayed faster and drooped, and so the towns of Two-Gut all had the look of antiquity.
    As the barge puttered through the lower chambers of the stomach toward the Volutes, passengers got on and off in little villages, driving sheep to market or wheeling bicycles bearing huge spheres of fluff tied with twine. They traded stories of invasion loudly and with fear.
    The spell that allowed Brian and Gregory to understand the language of the Norumbegans was under some strain. Apparently, this far down in Two-Gut, people spoke differently than they did in the Imperial Court of the Dry Heart, and so the translation stretched andwarped to try to catch new accents and words. Voices ended up sounding more American to the boys now, but, as Gregory said, sort of like cowboys in those Westerns that were made in Spain by Italian directors.
    The people sitting on the deck of the barge with their suitcases and their crates of squawking branf told stories of Thusser raids far down in the intestines. The homesteaders and frontiersmen in remote corners of the winding labyrinths that connected Two-Gut with Three-Gut said that the Thusser Horde had sent out brutal expeditions, appearing out of the winding darkness and dragging captives off into another stomach. Many Norumbegans were afraid.
    â€œWhere you folks headed?” a woman asked them while she knitted.
    â€œThree-Gut,” Brian answered. “We’re going to Pflundt. Where the heads of the Mannequin Resistance used to be. We’re looking for a capsule carried by three mechanical giants.”
    â€œDarlings!” The woman looked up from her knitting. “You ain’t smart to go to Pflundt. You going to walk right into Three-Gut, looking like you look? A Norumbegan noble girl — miss, if I can say — and two humans? It’s all full of Thusser now. They’ll eat you like cheesecake.”
    Now that she’d said it, it did sound a little stupid.
    Gregory touched his head. “Our ears are a giveaway.”
    â€œDag’s flush! Of course your ears are a giveaway. And your thinking. We can feel you ain’t right. The Thusser, they’s sharp as needle-nose pliers. They’ll figure you out in seconds.”
    â€œWe need disguises,” said Gregory. “Thusser suits.”
    Gwynyfer said, “That sounds rather jolly. Maybe we could purchase enchantments.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea!” said Brian.
    Gregory boasted to the woman, “We’ve already run into Thusser. One actually tried to kill us. On a sinking … factory thing.” He held up a fist and flexed his arm muscle. “But we triumphed! Yes, ma’am! Victory!”
    He started jerking his head and singing electric-guitar power chords, until Gwynyfer explained to the woman, “It was actually Bri-Bri here who was the hero. He grabbed a knife and stabbed the Thusser. If he hadn’t,