“Go!”
Claw jumped forward in a leap that took her three meters forward. I followed, landing well behind her. Moving right I swung my shoulders to illuminate whatever lay in that direction. Meander added her lights to mine. Flow and Draken did the same on the left side. Claw’s suit lights shone straight ahead. The source of the odor moved toward her.
“Fire!”
My two plasma beams hit the chest of a giant critter that was a cross between a salamander and a velociraptor. Bigger than an elephant, it moved fast on two clawed feet and its white-toothed mouth was aiming straight for Sharp Claw. Other purple beams shot out from Flow and Meander. They hit to either side of the creature, whose chest was aflame from my beams but still moved like a rocket for my crew friend. Why didn’t Claw fire? I took aim at the creature’s narrow head. But stopped.
Claw had jumped up and over the creature’s snapping jaws, landing on the shoulders behind its head. Her sharp-toothed mouth opened wide and clamped down on the creature’s neck as her claw-hands and claw-feet dug into the scaled body of the monster. It let out a roar that filled the large space we had entered.
“Claw! Get off that bastard so we can kill it!” I yelled, my pistols unable to track the creature’s head as it turned to one side and tried to bite into my Weapons carrier. But the flashing white teeth could not reach her as she hugged its neck and bit down harder. Red blood welled out from where Claw’s teeth dug into the green scales of the dino-like creature.
Draken landed at the front legs of the struggling monster in a leap I had never seen it do. He clamped his buzz-saw mouth onto one leg and wrapped his body around the other leg. The monster bent down and bit the upper back of my friend, but the foot-long teeth did not penetrate Draken’s armor. The monster teetered as its two legs struggled to move. The small arms on its chest flailed but found nothing to hold onto. It fell onto its side, with Claw still clamped to its neck. Red blood now gushed from where her teeth had bit through the scales.
“The belly!” chirped Flow, firing her two plasma pistols. Purple beams hit the yellow scales of the creature’s underbelly.
“Yes!” I fired both pistols at the same area, understanding the beams would not hurt Claw as she was on the far side of the monster’s body. Two more purple beams came from Meander’s plasma pistols. The six beams cut deep into the belly, then deeper, until the white bone of its spine was visible. My next two blasts cut through the spine and the creature became two halves that convulsed jerkily, red blood gushing out from its insides and a low moan escaping from its mouth as it let go of Draken’s armor. It went still.
Claw now let go and looked at me. Red blood covered her mouth and the top of her enviro-suit. Which had gouges showing on it. She spit out blood and gristle.
“I could have killed it myself!” Claw screech-hissed.
The anger in her tone surprised me. I holstered my pistols, glanced around the partly lit chamber to make sure no other monsters were hiding somewhere, then walked up to Claw, who now stood atop the front half of the creature. Her yellow eyes were wide open and bright.
“Why didn’t you use your pistol and rifle?” I gestured to where she had dropped the weapons just before her leap onto the monster.
She jumped down, landing at the creature’s front feet. One of which had been chewed off by Draken’s deadly teeth. “Because on my world the only way to defeat Scalies this size is to do what I did. Jump onto the spot just behind their head and bite through their neck while holding on with our claw-feet.” She gave a pat of approval to Draken’s armored head, then an approving gesture to Meander and Flow, who handed her the dropped pistol and rifle. Claw walked up to me.
“Oh.” But the image of the rushing monster stayed with me.
“I knew this creature could withstand the first plasma blasts. It would be among you unless I distracted it with my neck bite. That gave you time to vaporize its innards,” she hissed, turning away from me and sweeping the chamber with her suit lights. “I do wonder what it ate while in this level. While such creatures on my world can go without eating for an eight-day cycle, it needs more protein than the crawly bug I killed.”
I too wondered what the giant dino had eaten while down here. Overhead something rustled. I looked up. My suit lights followed.
“Fire!” I yelled as I lifted my pistols and fired two purple plasma beams.
The long crawly that resembled a centipede made no sound as my blasts cut through it in two places. But its three segments all dropped from the black stone ceiling. They landed atop us. One segment hit Draken. A second segment hit Meander. And the third segment with a mandible mouth landed atop me. Its weight drove me to the floor. As a dozen pincer feet tightened on my enviro-suit, I blinked shut my visor just before the mandible encased my helmet. A blinking red light and hooting sound told me the helmet was suffering overpressure. I dropped one pistol and reached for the mandible. The other pistol I lifted and almost fired into its body segment. Then stopped as I heard Claw over the suit com channel.
“Captain! We’re pulling it off you!”
I pushed against one side of the mandible. Its chitin teeth were scoring my visor but had not yet cracked it open. Suddenly bright suit light hit my eyes. I blinked, then fell backward as the creature’s weight disappeared.
“Damn!”
Claw, Meander and Flow held the head segment, which was still alive. Draken put an end to it by chomping its head in his buzz-saw mouth.
“Tastes terrible!” he honked. “Worse than frozen water!”
Slowly I stood up and looked around. The other two body segments were lying on the chamber floor, unmoving. Fresh plasma blast wounds showed on both pieces. The head segment now lay between me and my four crew friends. They had saved me. Or at least prevented me from being hurt. I looked to Claw and Flow, our two with natural infrared sight.
“Weapons and Pilot, any body heat signs from other critters?”
Each of them had their helmet visors up, as did Meander. Draken wore no suit. All of them had a smell sense better than any human nose. They made what passed for amusement sounds within their species.
“Captain,” chirped Flow. “There is nothing heat alive in this chamber. As your vidtablet will document.”
I felt stupid. Then I too laughed. “Not much of a leader, am I? We humans may have lived in caves but our night vision has always been poor.” I looked past them and swung my suit lights in a wide arc. “Do any of you detect any mechbots? Or active tech?” Then I looked down at my vidtablet. Its ultrasound ranging beam showed nothing moving in the chamber. The infrared tracker showed nothing alive.
Claw held her magrail rifle in both hands now as she joined me in scanning ahead. “No UV emissions typical of mechbots. But there are multiple pulsed graviton sources ahead, past the range of our lights.”
“Agreed,” honked Draken, moving to take the lead. “Along with strong neutrino flows. Let us investigate.”
The walking worm who was a living weapon and needed no enviro-suit on a world or in space now ambled forward, his head-arms holding two laser pistols. Claw jumped forward and landed beside him, keeping pace. Meander and Flow followed them. With a start I realized I was now the laggard. With a last glance at the yellow-orange segments of the giant centipede that had the ability to crawl across the chamber ceiling, I followed them too. But not until I looked up to check that ceiling. It was made of black stone tiles like the plaza on Boundary. Which meant this chamber was not subject to its roof falling in due to quakes. But what had drawn the dino, the centipede and the giant bug? And likely other smaller critters. I walked swiftly until I caught up with Draken and Sharp Claw. My suit lights joined theirs in creating a half-dome of yellow light that reached out ten meters. In a few minutes reflections appeared.
I looked down at my vidtablet. Its sensor scan showed eight sources of pulsed gravitons and neutrinos. “There’s tech ahead!”
“Correction,” hissed Sharp Claw who had bounded ahead, rifle and pisto
l aimed forward. “There are eight stasis tubes and zero-point power blocks ahead. But the tubes are cracked open. Unpleasant smells emanate from them.”
The four of us joined her as she stood at the foot of the first stasis tube. It lay atop its power block on a forty degree incline. It was the first in a line of eight such tubes. On either side were gray metal benches which came up to my shoulders. That identified them as possible lab tables for Harl researchers. The tubes and blocks were similar to the one we had seen in the research station. Beyond them were gray metal lumps, half-circles and a few pillars, all of metal that rose from the black stone floor. There were no power sparkles on any of the surrounding lab stuff. But the zero-point power blocks that supported the stasis tubes were power alive. Clusters of small sparkles showed on the sides of the blocks. Flow flapped her wings and jumped up onto the lower end of the nearest tube.
“Captain! A Harl is inside. Or the remains of one,” she chirped.
I moved closer, then rose up on my toes. The lower half of a Harl lay inside the stasis tube, which had its upper end broken off. Or perhaps bitten off in view of the teeth or claw gouges that were visible. Dry red blood showed where the chest, arms and head of the Harl had been. Clearly something had broken open the tube and then eaten part of the Harl inside. I put my bet on the dino as being the culprit. Moving to one side I scanned the other seven tubes with my suit lights. All tubes had their tops broken off. Only partial bodies remained inside. Red-brown dry blood was spattered everywhere.
“There were eight Harl still alive in these tubes,” I murmured. “Alive until the giant Scaly arrived and broke into them. Is any of the blood fresh?”
My crew beings spread among the other tubes. Each of them looked inside.
“Very dry inside,” chirped Flow. “The lower body portion is not dried out though, unlike the one you called a mummy at the research station. So this happened recently.”
“The blood has no fresh smell,” hissed Sharp Claw from the last tube in the line. She rubbed at a blood stain. “But the blood can be scratched. It is recently spilt.”
“Nothing fresh here,” chittered Meander. She turned her narrow praying mantis head my way, her compound eyes fixing on me. “Captain, the Harl were alive until recently. The speculation of Stars That Beckon was correct. Some Harl did make it into stasis tubes.”
“So they did,” came the booming voice of the Stars crystal component on my vessel. It and Akantha had seen everything we had seen, thanks to the individual suit videyes carried on the shoulder of each enviro-suit. Or atop Draken’s head. “Which makes more urgent the inspection of every Harl ruin along our route to their home world.”
Irritation filled me. The AI that had snuck part of itself aboard my star vessel was acting like a snotty Employer. And one that I had not sought out. Memory hit me. “But Stars, I have visited eleven other Harl ruins in the last four years of my scavenging trips. None of them held stasis tubes. Nor did any other Harl ruins according to Galactic Council records. Why not?”
“Unknown. Recall my task assignment? Are there living Harl anywhere in this galaxy? And what caused the Harl to disappear from their worlds?” it boomed in my suit com. “These damaged stasis tubes say Yes to my first question. Solving the second question may answer why you failed to detect tubes on other Harl worlds.”
So it might. Damn. I gestured to Draken. “Engineer, unload the floater pad from your back and put the power block on it from the first stasis tube. Akantha, do we have room for more zero-point power blocks in storage?”
Draken shrugged off the pad and moved to pull the damaged stasis tube from atop the power block. Flow, Meander and Sharp Claw acted to help him lift down the tube.
“We do not, unless you discard the two land skimmers that are in the valuables storage chamber,” Akantha sang softly. “You could discard them and have room for two power units.”
I frowned and racked my mind. There was no way I was going to toss out the bars of gold, rare earths and precious metals in the chamber. But leaving behind the ultra-valuable power blocks was not my style. “Akantha, what about our hangar space? The shuttle does not occupy all of the hangar.”
“True. There is room for two more power blocks in the hangar. My shuttle does require clearance space for entry and exit.”
So it does. “Akantha, have the repair mechbot remove the two skimmers to outside our vessel.” I turned to face my crew friends, who had heard our discussion. “Crew, we will take aboard four of these zero-point power blocks for future trade. Or bribes.” Draken already had the first block loaded onto the floater pad and tied down. Tying a block onto his back would make it hard for him to climb up the gravlift. Even with his gravband reducing the weight he had to pull up the rope. Damn. For certain I was going to buy personal floater pads at the next world that sold them! “Flow, Meander and I will rope pull a second block behind us. We can attach it the bottom of the climbing rope once we get to the shaft. Draken can return for the final two blocks. Claw, you provide security for us up top. Let’s do this!”
Draken pulled the metal cord attached to the floater pad as he followed Flow, Meander, Sharp Claw and the captain. The flow of gravitons and neutrinos from the block behind him and the block ahead of him was enjoyable. Too bad the hallway entry had failed to close fully. If it had the captain and his crew friends would be the first beings to present the galaxy with a living Harl! Perhaps on another Harl world there would be an intact stasis tube. But . . . the Stars mind component that occupied the control nexus crystal would insist his vessel return to the Boundary world, there to turn over the living Harl to the seven Harl AIs who called themselves Primaries. Well, perhaps the Akantha could retain the partial remains of a Harl. He would discuss that with the captain. He could strap a broken tube onto his back as he pulled the last power block out to the gravlift.
“Draken, you ready to follow us?”
He met the golden-brown eyes of the captain, who had finished tying the end of the climbing rope to the second power block. The male’s two-legged stance was quite stable. Seeing mostly two-legged beings in his early star travels had been a shock. Then he realized that two legs elevated intelligent beings early in their evolution, thus allowing them to see bigger predators and thereby escape being eaten. He pulled the floater pad closer.
“Yes, captain, I am ready to follow you up the shaft,” he honked, hearing the softer stretched-out speech spoken by the Human as his suit com spoke it for hearing by the captain. Draken lifted his head and stretched forth his two armhands. “You three may proceed me. I will follow. Then I will assist in pulling up the rope with its power unit.”
The Human’s soft face changed to an expression of satisfaction. That was another aspect of the Soft Skin beings who were mostly mammals like the captain and Lotan. Mammals had no rigid skin like Meander, or fixed beak like Flow. Instead of expressing emotions by skin color change, which he could do and had learned while still a youngling within his family group, the mammals made do with face changes.
“Thank you, Draken. Sorry to leave you with most of the lift and haul duties. I am not strong enough to lift a block by myself and Flow and Meander are a bit too fragile to wrestle with a power block.”
Draken almost let his skin turn pink with amusement. Of course it made sense for the most durable member of the vessel crew to do the most physical labor. But his captain was intent on being equitable in duties assigned to his crew beings. It was an aspect of the Human that had early on drawn his full loyalty. “I am most willing to assist in labor,” he honked, then reached out for the climbing rope as the captain climbed up it, his boots braced on the climbing knots.
“Well, at least we are richer now than we were when we landed!” laughed the captain.
Riches did not interest Draken. Exposure to high levels of radiation and encounters with strange lifeforms were the primary reasons he served on the Akantha vessel. He looked forward to encountering a live Harl. It would be interesting to see which of them w
as the strongest.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Laserta watched from her accel seat in the Akantha’s Control Chamber. The fellow furry who called himself Lotan had transferred the videye images from the captain’s enviro-suit to the front vidscreen without an order from her. She resented that. All beings in service to her must respond to her orders before taking any action, or saying anything. Her tenure as the Employer of the mostly furless being Jake Vitades had tested her dominance as never before. She had spent weeks pretending to cooperate in his management of the Tessene star vessel. Now she was reduced to the status of crew being. Frustration made her fur stiffen. Still, she knew how to get others to do what she needed done. She gestured at the image of the six-legged being who was the vessel’s Engineer and spoke.
“Akantha, the zero-point power block being pulled by the Engineer lacks its stasis tube. Should it not bring such tubes into this vessel?”
“Why?” sang the Tessene intelligence. “The Harl body is dead and only partially intact. The Primaries on Boundary want a living Harl. They will—”
“We desire that all eight stasis tubes with Harl remains be brought aboard this vessel,” interrupted the crystal of Stars That Beckon. “I am transmitting that order to your Captain Vitades.”
“But there is no room for such tubes,” said Akantha, her sing-song voice similar to feathered beings who flew through the skies of her world Nastura. “We are barely able to find space for four power blocks.”
“And you call yourself a vessel intelligence?” boomed Stars in a scornful tone. “Why are you tied to ground-bound thinking? There is room on the ceiling of the hangar. Even with all eight tubes attached to the ceiling there will be plenty of space for shuttle exit and entry.”
Star Thief Page 18
