“Incoming neutrino vidcast,” called Lotan, his mix of clicks and lemony smells something I was long used to experiencing.
“Accept it. Display on the front vidscreen.”
The middle of the vidscreen grew into a boxy room filled with Dookits reclining in water basins while their dry arms and hands managed floor-mounted control panels. To the right of the image loomed the system graphic that showed black circles for the nine worlds of this system. On the left was the true space image of the star and Dookit vessel. Which was enlarging as our one psol exit speed drew us closer to it.
“Intruders, are you the Dry Land archaeologists we were advised about?” clicked an elevated Dookit, who was flanked by two other Dookits. Red, yellow and black patterns swirled most strongly on his wet skin.
“We are,” said Lotan in a flow of clicks and odors that smelled pleasant to me. The meerkat gestured to Flow. “I am Lotan. Here is the passage code granted us upon first entry into your watery empire.”
The bulbous green eyes of the central Dookit followed Lotan’s body gestures closely. “Code received. You may pass on.”
Lotan’s hand gestures became softer and more musical. “Mighty pod leader, we have need to first visit the Harl ruin on this system’s fifth world. It is part of our assigned duty. Then we will return to this Gate and depart your watery presence.”
The two Dookit flanking the leader changed their skin patterns to a flurry of green, blue, red and yellow patterns. He gestured to them. Then he fixed on Lotan.
“Being Lotan, passage inward requires payment of a fee. What do you offer for our indulgence?” the leader said in a series of clicks and odors that I found bothersome.
Lotan’s white-brown fur shimmered as his hands and arms moved in a dance he called Happy Reconciliation.
“My captain allows me to offer one bar of indium, one bar of iridium and one bar of platinum,” Lotan clicked smoothly.
“No gold?”
“Our gold is limited,” Lotan said softly. “What we have is pre-obligated to pay for fusion fuel. I will send the three bars to you by way of spybot transport.”
The central Dookit’s skin patterns moved in a strong mix of yellow, red and black patterns. “Acceptable. Remove your dry skins from our sight. Travel inward. Then return and depart through the Gate. You do not need to vidcast us when you return. Dry Lander skins are unpleasant to behold.”
Lotan bowed, then gestured rapidly. “Departing your presence, on mighty pod leader.” The Dookit image vanished, leaving just the true space and system graphic images. Lotan turned to me. “Captain, shall I do as before?”
I nodded. “Yes, get the three bars. And you do well to preserve our gold supply. Its use in microelectronics and solid state sensors makes it our most valuable asset.”
Lotan’s black snout whiskers flared outward. “Captain, I depart.”
The meerkat headed to the chamber exit on my left. I looked ahead at the purple-feathered eagle who loved to fly through magnetic waves and stellar winds. “Pilot, take us inward. Uh, what is the distance and time for transit?”
Flow looked down at her panel as she tapped it with one wing-hand. “Distance is 35 AU. Travel time at ten psol is five days. The fifth world is on our side of this system, fortunately.”
“Fortunately. Take us inward. Do not use the full power of our magfield drive. Rely on our thrusters.”
“Moving us inward,” Pilot chirped softly. “Draken, please feed pellets to our thrusters.”
“Feeding fusion pellets to our thrusters,” honked the armored worm. “Captain, may I depart to the Power Chamber?”
I smiled. The walking worm just wanted to wrap himself around the thruster and absorb the flood of neutrinos produced by the miniature fusion blasts that powered our fusion pulse thrusters. It was the equivalent of me drinking three whiskey sours. Except our Engineer never got drunk or passed out. He just got hyper in his honking.
“Permission to depart, Engineer. Enjoy yourself.”
“Departing,” Draken said as he followed after Lotan, his six legs moving more quickly than normal.
I focused on the system graphic. It indicated this system held three outer gas giants, three Earth-sized worlds that lay within the liquid water habitable zone of the star, and three smaller worlds similar to Venus and Mercury. The fifth world was slightly larger than Earth, based on the data column that showed to one side of the graphic. There was no asteroid belt. A few comets were indicated as they moved on long elliptical orbits about the yellow-orange star. There was no sign of moving neutrino sources, which meant there were no other star vessels in this system. At least we would not have to argue with, or destroy, a council contractor vessel. Once we did destroy a vessel, word would go by neutrino widecast to watch out for us. Which would make our future passages more dangerous. I sat back and watched as we passed by the two boxes and giant globe of the Dookit Battleclaw vessel. It ignored us. We ignored it. Thank the Goddess!
Flow guided the Akantha down through the stratosphere of the fifth world, aiming for the Harl ruin located in the middle of a dark green forest that filled most of an equatorial continent. She welcomed the landing site. Ice sheets occupied parts of the northern and southern hemispheres of this world since it received less star warmth than her world of Windy Air. The continents at the north and south poles of the world were riven by upthrusting mountain ranges covered in white snow, with glaciers filling the valleys in between. Those parts of the world resembled the Earth place named Swiss Alps, a location the captain had shown her on his vidtablet as he tried to explain the sport known as skiing. To her it made no sense to stand on narrow wood boards and then slid down snow slopes, dodging trees, boulders and other skiers. In fact, why ski when you could fly? But the Humans had no wings so of course they had found many ways to move across their world’s surface. A low tone sounded from her panel.
“Captain! We are being scanned!” She twisted the Akantha to one side, then another, while tapping in speed changes to the thrusters. Instinct told her to fly like a predator flew after her.
“Where? What kind of scanning?” he said sharply.
A red beam shot past her left side. “Microwaves and hadrons! Something shot at us!”
“Captain!” hissed Sharp Claw. “It was a proton laser. I must reply!”
“Any sign of a gravity beam?”
“None!” hissed Claw.
“Then take it out.”
Flow felt the world’s magnetic field flow past her as she guided her vessel lower, twisting and dropping and speeding up in random moments. The red proton laser beam passed behind her. Its color looked weaker than before.
“Firing!” hissed Claw.
Two green laser beams shot down from her vessel’s right and left side carbon dioxide lasers. They struck a black stone tower that stuck up above the green trees that partly overlay the black stone structures of the Harl city. Black stone blocks exploded away from the tower, leaving a broken stump of a tower. The scope view grew larger as they got closer. She saw a green circle lying close to the broken tower. Unlike other ruins that were overgrown by red barked trees with giant roots that encased parts of each ruin, the circle held only low vegetation that resembled the lily petals of her world. It was the only location available for the Akantha to set down.
“Captain, the green circle is the only landing site clear of large trees,” she chirped hurriedly. “Shall I land there?”
“Yes, Pilot, land there. Weapons, are we still being scanned?”
“No scanning detected,” Claw hissed sharply. “However there are graviton pulses coming from the site of the tower. No other city location gives off energy signals.”
“Well, something is energized under that tower ruin,” the captain mused. “This whole city resembles the jungle-covered Mayan ruins I studied in Edessa. It is similar to the Harl ruin we visited one cycle ago in system 42,137. You all know what that means.”
“What does it mean!” barked Laserta from behi
nd Flow, sounding her normal irritated self.
Flow lowered the Akantha down onto its landing struts. A brief vibration told her what her panel said. They were grounded in the center of the green circle of what was likely a black-stone tiled plaza. In fact her panel’s external videyes showed black stone in the areas blasted by the directed exhausts of the thrusters. They showed something else.
“Captain! Life! Over there!”
“Big life,” Vitades murmured in his smooth English. “Laserta, take a look at that giant critter. It’s way bigger than the largest Earth elephant.”
Flow was already seeing the giant creature. It resembled nothing she had ever seen before. It did possess a mouth filled with white teeth as long as one of her wings. Its four legs were almost as thick as one of the tree trunks nearby. And a mound atop the middle of the creature held a domed braincase, which was covered in a ring of purple eyes. The mouth at one end roared loudly, a sound that echoed through the Control Chamber. The other end of the creature picked up its massive legs and struck the plaza surface, propelling it forward in a leap that covered half the distance to her Nest.
“Weapons!” yelled the captain.
“Firing!” hissed Claw.
A purple beam shot out from the plasma beamer atop her vessel, impacting on the front end of the green-skinned creature. The beam passed through the teeth and into the body of the now running monster.
“Firing again!”
A second purple beam hit the brain mound, cutting the creature in half. The legs of the two ends churned a moment, moving those halves in different directions. Then they stopped as red blood gushed out and flooded across the green lily petals. Nearby bird-like creatures took flight from within the trees, rising in swirls that resembled the smaller nesters on Windy Air. Clearly the creature’s attack had awakened more than her vessel.
“Target is dead,” hissed Sharp Claw, her silvery scales flexing as she turned and looked back to the captain. Her yellow eyes almost glowed. “I fought. We live.”
“So we do,” said the captain. He looked to his right. “My comment meant that on jungle worlds like this, we should expect attack by deadly animals. Which is one reason why we will all exit wearing enviro-suits and carrying weapons along with our equipment backpacks.” The captain looked back to her and the other crew beings. “Lotan and Laserta will stay behind. Flow, Sharp Claw, Meander and Draken will go out with me. Draken, strap on the floater pad. Everyone, we meet at the airlock ramp in ten minutes!”
Flow gave a last sensor scan of the tree-covered Harl city. There had been only one tall tower here. It was now half the size of before, with large black stone blocks fallen in a cascade to the ground below. The stones had pushed away trees from the tower’s base. Four nearby mounds covered in trees resembled the stone dome they had visited on the world of Stars That Beckon. Whose component had said nothing. Why? Did it know something about this world they did not? She hoped the nexus crystal would help them with their tower entry, as that tower lay above the pulsed graviton source. If they were lucky, there would be powered entries. If not lucky, their explosives and plasma pistols would provide entry. But what would provide safety?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I followed after Sharp Claw as we entered the tower base through a blasted open entry. The entry circle had not responded to my verbal demand. The entry had yielded to a half kilo of C-4 plastique. Inside there were no light sparkles. Only our shoulder suit lamps illuminated our way. Claw held both her magrail rifle and her plasma pistol as she advanced, her forward lean a clear sign of a predator on the move. I held a plasma pistol in my right hand while my left arm supported my vidtablet and its sensor outputs. The pulsed graviton flow lay below us an unknown distance. I followed our Weapons carrier out of the stone hallway and into a circular chamber. It had bas-relief carvings on its walls, similar to the ground level chamber of Stars’ tower. I looked left. A transparent gravlift tube stood there, dimly reflecting my suit light. The top of it was broken and did not touch the ceiling. There was no sign of a gravplate at floor level. But its four meter width offered plenty of room for climbing.
“Claw, any sign of predators?”
“None that I can smell,” she said, her helmet visor open to the humid air. She did not turn my way. “Nor do I detect any infrared heat sources beyond us five.”
“Good.” I headed for the gravlift. “Time we used this shaft to head below.” I reached out and touched the circular outline of the entry. Nothing. I stood back and aimed my plasma pistol. “Meander, pull out the climbing rope from your backpack and find something to attach it to. We will have to use it to descend. At least we can reduce our effort by turning our gravbands to a lower gee setting.”
“Arranging the rope,” she chittered. “Reducing my gravband setting.”
“Clunk!” The transparent material of the shaft fell backward and down as my plasma beam easily cut through it. I looked back to where the others were. Meander had attached the rope to a round stone platform that might have held some tech. Nothing was there now. She pulled the rope over and handed it to me. I grabbed the heavy coil and threw it down the open shaft. Then I tapped my gravband to a half-gee setting.
“We are ready,” Meander said.
I could see that. My praying mantis held a plasma pistol in one griparm while the other was prepared to grab the rope and move down it, using the regularly spaced rope knots we always used to make climbing up or down easier. Beside her stood Sharp Claw, her rifle slung over one shoulder, Flow with her wing-hands free for gripping and Draken, who had the floater pad tied to the top of his long body.
Briefly I wished for a personal floater pad. That would easily take us up or down vertical shafts. Well, perhaps at a future market world we could buy a dozen or so. We had plenty of precious metals now. I faced the opening cut into the shaft, reversed position, grabbed the rope, wrapped it around my waist, put my boots on the lip of the shaft, and slowly lowered myself as my feet walked down the shaft. It was the kind of climbing I had learned while exploring the rocky Pindus mountains to the west of Edessa. At first I had taken the old Roman road Via Egnatia. Then after learning the use of rock-climbing pitons and brakes, I began scaling sheer cliffs. It had been fun. Now, it was a job. Above me Claw came down swiftly, her claw-hands and claw-feet easily gripping the rope. Above her moved Flow, her purple wings widespread in instinctive fluttering as she too descended using her wing-hands and talon feet. Meander used all four chitin feet and one griparm to hold the rope as she descended. Above her Draken lowered his bottom segment over the lip of the shaft, waited for our praying mantis to go lower, then slowly slid down the rope, holding on only with the two armhands that sprouted from his head segment. Mentally I gave thanks the rope was made from carbon fiber with a tensile strength greater than platinum.
Then I looked down at my vidtablet. The pulsed graviton flow was lower than my position. I climbed down past a hallway opening that was dark as doom, and continued downward. I passed a second hallway opening. My lights showed two more hallway openings below my feet. At the next opening my vidtablet showed an increase in pulsed gravitons. Along with a high level of neutrinos. I swung into the dark hallway, stood up and faced the depths of the hall. My suit lights illuminated a black stone surface with similar walls and rounded roof. Closed circular doors showed at irregular intervals. I tapped my gravband back to one gee.
“The source lies ahead,” honked Draken as he joined the rest of us just inside the shaft opening, one armhand tapping his own gravband.
“I smell a bioform,” hissed Sharp Claw. “Several bioforms!”
I brought up my plasma pistol as the scaled woman jumped ahead of me, holding her rifle and pistol at the ready. Behind me my crew did the same based on familiar sounds. Draken stomped, making the floor stones vibrate. “My teeth are ready.”
Inside I smiled. Touching my helmet I made my visor rise up. Now I could smell it too. A rancid odor wafted down the hallway. As I followed Claw, the odor
got stronger. What the hell could smell so bad?
“There!”
Purple light flared as Claw shot something. Our suit lights showed the partial carapace of a gigantic bug with mandible pincers big enough to enclose my head. If it were alive. Which it wasn’t. The rest of its body had been vaporized by Claw’s plasma blast.
“Thank you, Weapons. Was that the smell source?”
“It was not,” hissed Claw as she resumed her hunt posture. “The source lies ahead.”
I followed after her. Briefly I wondered how the giant bug and whatever smelled so bad had gotten down here. Then I recalled the broken top of the gravlift tube. Anything my size or larger could have entered there and gone down the shaft, there to occupy any of the four subterranean levels. Or several somethings could have gone down here, chasing after smaller prey. Clearly the tower was infested with nasty somethings. This was beginning to feel all too much like the Harl jungle ruin we had explored a year ago for an employer who was a mobile plant that resembled a Venus flytrap. Except it had brains and manipulator thorns.
“Captain,” called Claw. “Ahead.”
I looked past her. A black stone wall blocked the hallway, similar to what we had seen at the Harl research station. Clearly something lay on the other side of the wall. And the entry was partly open, with its spiraling stone leaves retracted enough for things much larger than me to enter. “The odor is on the other side?”
“It is,” she hissed. “I go first!”
“Wait!” I gestured to my crew to come forward. “Let us flank you with our pistols at the ready.”
“As you wish. Advise when I may enter.”
I walked up and stood to her right. Meander joined me. On Claw’s other side Flow fluttered up, her wing-hands holding two plasma pistols, her eagle eyes fixed on the opening and whatever her infrared sight saw beyond. Draken stood next to her, his buzzsaw mouth open and dripping white fluid. The digestive fluid was strong enough to stain white the stone touched by his drops. I leaned forward and flexed my knees. I had no plans to wait on this side of the dark entry.
Star Thief Page 17
