by Paul Brandis
"Maybe." He nodded at the ship. "Is there anyone else in there?"
She shook her head.
"Then let's go," and before she could react, he scooped her up in his arms and sped down the road, the probe buzzing along behind.
The girl kicked out in rage. "Listen, you mechanical ape, if you don't want your head in pieces..."
"Quiet," he roared, and his magnified voice bounced off the valley walls. He glanced over his shoulder again, skidded to a stop, and dropped her to her feet. As the huge insects neared the upended ship, he pointed at it. "Burn it."
Anger flared in her eyes. "What? All my data..."
"Fire," he shouted, his voice entering the pain level. "Fire or die."
Her weapon hummed, and an iridescent streak of purple flashed through the air. The explosion blasted them off their feet. Twitching limbs and black blood rained down, intermingled with clouds of Ghosts.
He pulled her up. "Come on. Our only chance is to get away from here as fast as we can," and he struck out in a fast trot. In moments she was left behind.
The probe zoomed in next to his face, and the girl's voice came out of it. "Wait up, speedy, or get my initials burned on your ass."
He circled back, picking her up on the run. "Like it or not, I've got to carry you."
She stiffened, but did not argue. But after a moment, she said, "You stink. Don't you bathe on this planet?"
He picked up speed. "Baby, it's been a long, hard week."
The acid weed ended as the road rose into low mountains. The road narrowed to a path, curving around outcroppings of rock. Still carrying the girl, he had to slow for fear of meeting more Ghosts. And for leagues his readouts had warned about over-exhaustion.
Encountering fresh silverfish droppings, he slowed. "We'll have to leave the path and climb from here."
She had been silent in his arms, but now asked, "If you're not an android, how can you carry me so far so fast?"
"Augmentation. Come on, I'll help you climb."
As they pulled themselves up the slippery boulders, he monitored her, and when he saw her tiring, stopped. Gratefully she slipped down and cushioned her back against a rock.
After catching her breath, she said, "Can't you call a rescue craft to get us out of here?"
"Nothing works on this planet but people—and those giant insects. Wave communications don't go far either."
Stunned, she cried, "You mean I'm marooned here?"
He nodded. "Just like the rest of us."
Struck by the enormity of her fate, she lay back in silence.
Not allowing her to dwell on her problem, Phil stood and said, "So come on. Nobody is going to get us out of these mountains but us."
She started to stand, but he shoved her back down again. Bouncing off hard rock, she glared. "Watch it, helmet-head," but quieted as he held up a warning hand.
Following his point, she peeked over a boulder. A long train of silverfish slithered along the road below with shimmering specters astride. She gave a sharp command, and her probe also ducked behind a rock.
She spoke low. "What are those white creatures on their backs?"
"Ghosts."
She looked dubious. "Uh huh."
"I'm new here myself, but apparently when the mining colony flew out here, they crashed just like you did." He pointed at a shadowy satellite barely visible in the afternoon sky. "The reason was that Black Moon. I guess it's almost solid lysidium-three. Its radioactivity messes up electronics. That's what killed your engines."
She lay back and gazed at the black, pockmarked monster overhead. "So that's why my nuclear drive went crazy."
"Right. I was lucky. I landed in a lake next to a town, Bazinville."
"But what about the Ghosts?"
"When the colonists crashed, they stripped the ship and divided up into different towns. But soon they found they couldn't reproduce."
She eyed him suspiciously. "What do you mean, they couldn't reproduce?"
"In the original crew of about two thousand, nearly half were women, and before they could protect them, all but one became impotent. That was Queen Rachelle, and she disappeared a few years ago."
"Oh."
"So, the scientists began experimenting. One, Doctor Bazin, the leader in the city where I'm staying, tried replacing defective organs with electro-mechanical ones. It didn't work, but he did develop augmentation." He patted a thickly muscled leg. "This isn't really my body."
"Oh? And where's your body?"
"In Bazinville."
"What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing. But this one's been modified for speed."
She hooked a thumb down at the path. "The Ghosts, remember?"
"Right. Some physicists experimented with a molecular theory to stimulate reproduction, but one of Black Moon's orbits came too close, and their nuclear generator went wild. Radioactivity killed all the people in their town, except the ones the physicists were experimenting on. They became Ghosts. Their molecular structure remained the same, but the force field that bound the molecules together was weakened. Now they seem indestructible; objects pass right through them. But they are unstable, both mentally and physically. Also they're sensitive to radiation, even heat, so they stay in the caves up here near the polar region where it's cooler."
"What about those grey monsters they ride?"
"Parasites that were aboard the colonist's ship. When the radiation hit the silverfish they started growing. The rest of the people on the planet kill them, but the Ghosts breed them for war and transportation."
"If Ghosts are so dangerous, why are you up here in their country?"
"We got word that a trader had some ovary cells from Queen Rachelle and some nuclear fuel nozzles, so I came up to buy them. The cells are in great demand. Some of the cities here are pretty hostile, and population means power. The trader also had some nozzles I need for my ship to get off this god-forsaken planet."
"I see." She was silent for a moment, then asked, "What's a Shade?"
"One of Luttz's experiments. A Ghost is like gas, a Shade is like liquid. They're hostile, but they trade between the Ghosts and the rest of the planet.
"He glanced over the boulder at the path below, and stood up. "No more questions. The Ghosts are gone and we've got to keep moving while it's still daylight."
"All right, but one more thing."
"Now what?"
"What's your name?"
"Phil."
"And I'm Chloe Donn." She pointed proudly to the insignia embedded in her arm, "Major, Recon Flight, Valkyrie Legion. We received a reading that there was a planet out here with unusually heavy ore deposits." She glanced at Dark Moon. "And now I know why." Then she eyed him. "How about you? What do you do?"
"I guess you'd say I'm a navigator, or at least I was until I crashed here."
Standing next to him, she inspected his face mask. "Well, Phil, I like to know who I'm talking to. How about letting me see your face?"
He nodded. "This isn't my face, but you're welcome to see it."
He illuminated the interior of his mask, and she leaned forward, cupping her hands around the face shield. She jerked back. "My God, what happened to you?"
He started up the hill. "Major, this body has covered a lot of territory. The first time it died was when the colony crashed into this bloody planet."
The afternoon sun had dropped behind a mountain, casting shadows across the narrow canyons as the three traversed the side of a hill. Suddenly Phil crouched at a narrow opening in the base of a cliff.
"What is it?" she whispered.
He peeked in. "We need a place to stay tonight. We're going in."
She pulled on a pair of half goggles and he saw that the probe's view picture appeared on them in green. "I'm right with you," she said.
"Good, but don't use white light."
Her lip curled. "No kidding, genius."
The uneven floor sloped gently down several paces, then fell away into a vast cavern. A shelf
cut the rock to the right, and they crept down the cliff's face, until a natural opening branched off into a narrow cave.
He stepped in and probed the darkness. The floor was thick with dust, and the walls merged high above.
A readout on his screen surprised him, and he switched on a low beam of white light. It spot-lighted a moist, back wall that dripped into a tiny pool. Water.
Chloe lurched past him. "Baby, check it," she ordered.
The probe dropped above the pool and lowered a rod. Phil dipped a finger in it. "It's a little high in alkaline salts, but it's drinkable," he said, but the girl had already dunked her head and was drinking deeply. He sat next to her and watched.
Soon she flopped back on the narrow sandbank and said, "You hungry?"
He shook his head.
"Suit yourself," and called the probe. It deposited several malleable tubes in her hand. "Baby carries emergency rations for nine meals."
"That's three days. If we're lucky, by then we'll be back in Bazinville."
She crushed the end of one tube and his sensors picked up the smell of hot meat. Sucking on the other end, she said, "Why aren't you hungry?"
"I've switched off my nerve responses, and have just about enough calories stored to get home."
Eyeing him, she sucked another tube. "In other words you don't feel anything."
"That's right."
She finished the final tube, drank more water, then splashed off her face. Lying back on one arm, she said, "I suppose that's good, but sometimes it's good to have a little feeling too."
She ran her fingers across his chest, lightly fingering the pointed heat sensors protruding from his shoulder.
He actuated the nerve lead-in to his brain, and was instantly struck by a wave of pain and weariness. She felt his muscles knot, and rubbed deeper.
Something in him stirred, and he pulled her to him.
The probe buzzed overhead. "Can't you do something with your pet?" Phil said irritably.
For the first time she smiled. "Baby, it's all right. Go guard the door."
She had been sleeping on his arm for some time, when he heard a noise his data bank could not identify. It came from the cavern. Lowering her head to the sand, he hurried to the opening. There it was again, a faint pop like the crackling of electrons. The hovering probe hummed in his ear.
Switching to black light, he ducked under the probe and crept down the path. The sound grew louder. The path descended around a corner from where he looked down into a small cavern. There, far below, lit by eerie, phosphorescent walls, a low altar had been erected. On the altar lay a woman Phil recognized. He had seen the portrait in Bazin's castle: Queen Rachelle.
Straps pinned her arms and legs. Crude apparatus ran to her womb. At her feet swayed a huge, bloated ghost, pulsating with lust. The crackling static electricity sounded as more Ghosts who were cued up behind it, merged with it, creating a single, more or less substantial, body.
Along the walls lay coffin-shaped containers hewed out of the stone. In them floated pasty-white humanoids in various stages of development, many misshapen and malformed.
Ghosts hovered over the containers, straining to rearrange the monsters' clay-like features. Some of the more developed humanoids moaned as Ghosts disappeared inside them, forcing them to stand and shuffle out an opening in the back wall.
As Phil watched, the line of Ghosts completed their merging, and the one ponderous body hunched over the pinioned woman.
When the conglomerate finished and stood, Ghosts lurking nearby swooped in, opened the queen's womb, and removed the fertilized ovum. They drifted over and immersed it in a stone container of murky fluid. Other Ghosts tinkered with the woman's womb, and the huge beast knelt over her once again.
Having recorded the process, Phil turned to go--and nearly bumped into the probe suspended at his shoulder. Chloe crouched beneath it. Phil jerked a thumb up the path, and they hurried to the tiny cave.
"What was that all about?" she asked grimly.
"It looks like the Ghosts have found a way to reproduce after all. We've got to get going."
Throughout the night they clambered over the mountains, guided by their telemetry, and as the sun erupted on the horizon, they trotted through a wide, grassy plain at the base of the foothills. The narrow-bladed grass, semi-animated, shied away in ripples at their approaching tread. By evening they were standing on the sandy beach of the inland sea.
The girl plopped down, tore off her boots, and sighing luxuriously, dipped her feet in the cool water. After a time, she stepped from the water and called the probe for food rations. Then she moved behind a rock. As she walked back, the grass caressed her feet and stretched to cover her legs when she laid down. "What's with this grass?" she said with a giggle.
"I guess it loves you for the gift you just gave it."
She patted the grass beside her. "You want to share its affection?"
He slid down beside her, cushioning her head on his chest. She glanced up at his face shield. "Is your other face any better than this one?"
He gently dropped his hand over her face, closing her eyes. "You'll see—if we ever get."
"Watch, Baby," she said sleepily, and snuggled down on his arm.
The metal sentinel zoomed high over their heads and hovered, slowly turning.
Two days later as they loped along the sea shore, the green spires of Bazinville came into view across the water.
"It's lovely," she cried.
"Well, it's not luxurious, but it's comfortable, and the people are going to love you, a fertile female." He glanced at her bare midsection. "They'll have to make a lead corset to protect you. You could send your probe over to tell them we're here." He looked around. "By the way, where is Baby?"
Her weapon, cradled in the crook of her arm, pointed at him. "I sent her back to the Ghosts' cave."
"Why?"
"To destroy the Queen."
He gasped. "But that means..."
"That means," she interrupted, steel in her voice, "I am the queen now." She winked. "You may get lucky and be my king. Besides, she wasn't any good to you."
"Still..."
"It was my decision," she snapped. "It's over. Live with it."
"How do you know it's over?"
She popped out a tiny earphone. "Because Baby told me." She pushed it back in her ear and winced as she adjusted it. "Trouble is, I haven't heard anything but static since."
He glanced at the ominous dark moon rising above the horizon, but said nothing. Then he spied a shiny object speeding through the sky and pointed. "She's coming."
Movement on the ground also caught his eye, and he increased telescopic power. Silverfish; with pulpy-white warriors perched on their backs.
He spun around and searched the shore for a dock. Scooping up the girl, he took off at flank speed.
"Now what?" she complained, bouncing in his arms.
"We're about to have unwanted visitors. Let's hope there's a raft at the dock."
But the dock was empty.
Grounding her, he dashed out on the dock and banged a hanging metal tube.
Across the lake, two guards next to the dock stood up and strolled out to a raft. But before they reached it, an alarm bell in the palace rang out, and a squad of Bazin's soldiers stormed out the gate. They brushed aside the guards, and piled on the raft.
“Good,” Phil murmured, “they've seen the army of Ghosts.”
But as the soldiers strained at their poles, he saw that the silverfish would reach Chloe and him before they could.
Pulling Chloe's laser cannon from his shoulder, he glanced back at the onrushing silverfish. The naked humanoids clinging to their backs wielded particle guns; primitive, but deadly.
As Phil trotted up to the girl, the probe dropped from the sky, flying erratically, and took up position next to her.
Concerned, she watched its struggle to maintain altitude. "What's the matter, Baby?" she said, and dug in her ear to hear.
P
hil did not look at her. "She's dying."
The girl spun around. "What do you mean?"
He pointed at the black moon. "See how close it is? No nuclear motor lasts under its influence. Remember your ship?"
"But..."
"No buts." He nodded at the charging phalanx of giant insects. "That's what you have to worry about now."
He cocked the hand cannon. "Try to down the fish. Then we'll see about the things on their backs.
The girl squinted at the gruesome cavalry, and quietly cocked her laser. Her only words were, "Kill, Baby."
Puffs of dust from particle shots splattered around them as they waited. Then as one, they fired.
The front row of silverfish skidded and fell, plowing into the ground and hurling off their riders. The humanoids should have died instantly. Instead, driven on by the Ghosts inside, they dragged to their feet, and disjointedly staggered on.
The trio's next fusillade tore open the next rank of silverfish, and these careened into the humanoids. But the zombies pulled themselves up once again. Their bodies were crumpled and broken, but mindlessly they struggled on, firing continuously. Anemic, pink fluid oozed from their wounds.
Soon the last of the silverfish lay still or twitching. Now the shambling humanoids became the targets of the three's lasers. Their fire, purple streaks of death, sheared off arms, legs; dismembering, decapitating. But as soon as a creature's limb was sliced off, a ghost seeped from its carcass, and thrust it back together again. And the monsters kept coming.
Some dragged a leg. Some carried an elbow at a sickening angle. Some could not walk at all but scratched along the ground. Still they came; and still they fired.
As the creatures neared, the three inched back until they stood against a large boulder. Phil caught a shot in the wrist, and another in the leg, but stayed on his feet and kept firing.
Shots chipped the rocks around them as Chloe called, "We're slowing them, but we can't stop them."
"It's the Ghosts. We've got to..." A round tore into his chest, and another smashed his face mask. He crumpled to his back, his voice fading like a lost transmission.
"Phil," she screamed, and, firing furiously, leaped to bestride the fallen warrior. He was the father of the embryo in her womb--her probe had confirmed it--and he could not die without her wreaking vengeance on his killers.
