by B. V. Larson
“Jort! Is the ship ready?”
“Engines idling, sir.”
The lavender blue glow at the rear of the ship was a welcome sight indeed. I could hear the engines as I got closer, rumbling and coughing a puff of yellow plasma now and then. They were warmed up and ready to go.
“Come on, come on!” I shouted, waving frantically for the model-D to hurry.
It took no notice and continued trudging along with the same implacable gait. I wasn’t sure if any model-D could hurry. They weren’t programmed for it.
Just then, a shadow rippled. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, off to the left.
Spinning that way, I released a shower of darts from my shredder. The darts flew out and exploded, popping harmlessly over rocks and snow. Each tiny explosion flared blindingly bright in the dim puddle of shade that surrounded my ship.
“What you shooting?” Jort asked, but I ignored him.
I glanced this way and that, trying to look everywhere at once. This enemy, if accounts were to be believed, was quite stealthy and deceptive.
There it was—under the ramp. A quivering blob crouched, waiting for us to try to escape. I obliterated it with a shower of darts.
“A culus…” I whispered.
That’s what such things were called. Rounded creatures with a single rubbery foot. They had leathery wings that would allow them to glide for short distances in a thin atmosphere like the one this world had.
Whenever you saw a culus, a shrade was never far behind. That was the snake-like thing I’d seen in the pit. Whirling around again, I eyed the landscape.
The model-D had carried Sosa to the foot of the ramp by this time. It tilted forward and began the upward climb.
In a rush, I jumped onto the ramp once Sosa and the robot were halfway up. I slammed my palm onto the emergency-close button, and the ramp rapidly retracted with me riding on it.
Sides heaving from exertion, I shook my head and took my helmet off. The ship rose into the sky, and we left the nameless, frozen, tomb-like world behind.
Jort came running down the steps from the upper deck. He looked at me with wide eyes.
“What was all the shooting?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” I said, giving him a tired smile.
For a second or two, Jort smiled back. But then his eyes drifted to Sosa, and his expression changed to one of horror.
“What’s got her?” he demanded.
I turned, and I saw a monster.
It was the shrade. The long, stealthy, rope-like creature I’d feared to meet. Somehow, it had crept close and gotten itself wrapped around Sosa and the model-D that still carried her in its mindless arms. Like a boa constrictor, it had wrapped its muscular body around both of them and begun to squeeze in earnest.
“Get it off her!” Jort yelled, and we both grabbed the head-section, which consisted of a single blunt projection positioned over a serrated ridge of bony material that served the alien as a mouth. Pulled from its prey, the shrade flexed and dragged our hands back toward the model-D.
The android was the only thing that had saved the girl so far, I realized. The alien must have mistaken it for a being of flesh and blood. It was trying to crush both of them, and only half-succeeding.
Sosa, for her part, wasn’t looking too good. Parts of her body were purple with blood and bruising. Other areas, notably her face, were pale and dead-looking. She’d already lost consciousness, and I knew she’d soon lose her life.
Trying to rip the alien away from her wasn’t working. I stepped back, panting, and waved Jort clear. Raising my shredder, I took aim and released a burst of pellets.
The head section was pulped. It writhed and flopped—but the damned thing didn’t die. It kept on squeezing and squirming. How could it do so without a brain? I didn’t know, maybe these aliens didn’t keep their brains in their heads.
Then, I saw something strange occur. Sosa’s abdomen, which had been under a great deal of stress—popped open.
A bizarre, white crab-like creature, about the size of a rat, popped out of her ruptured belly and scuttled over the floor, leaving a trail of gore behind it.
“What the hell is that?” Jort demanded, stunned.
“It’s her rider. It’s leaving her for dead.”
I aimed my shredder, but before I could shoot the nasty crab-like parasite, the shrade sprang upon it. There was a moment of clicking on the deck and a crunch could be heard. The shrade had killed the thing that had tormented Sosa for so long.
My shredder hammered, spraying both aliens with explosive darts. I kept firing until the chamber rattled empty. By that time, they were both dead. There was no doubt.
We turned back to Sosa and the model-D—but the android had walked away, carrying Sosa with him. The trail was easy to follow, and we found Sosa stuffed into the tiny medical bay, which was really a box with a porthole on it.
Our medical systems were minimal, and we had no doctor. The best we could do was shove an injured person into the medical bay. The ship’s auto-doc could fix many serious injuries and diseases. If they got lucky, the victim would live and emerge at some point.
If the auto-doc failed, it took care of matters then, too. The injured crewman would be ejected into space. There was nothing you could do to improve the odds. The auto-doc did its best, and you hoped for the outcome you wanted.
“You think she’ll make it?” Jort asked me.
I shook my head. “Probably not. But she’s a tough girl, so who knows?”
Jort followed me back to the bridge. There we plotted our course out of the Sardez system.
“You knew those nightmares were out there, huh?” Jort asked.
“I’ve heard stories.”
Jort made a rude sound with his mouth. “You knew. That’s why you work Jort so long. To avoid the daylight.”
I shrugged.
“Where did they come from? That thing out there? The flying one—and the worm?”
“Remember what I told you? About the Sardez and what killed them?”
He looked puzzled for a moment. Jort was no scholar.
“Oh yeah,” he said, brightening at last. “You said something killed the Sardez. Some aliens.”
“That’s right. The creatures we just met up with… that’s the kind of thing that did it. I’ve always heard legends about them, but I’ve never seen them myself. Anyway, those things are the reason the Sardez learned to make the best guns. Didn’t do them much good in the end, though.”
“No…”
I snapped the ship off autopilot and made a swooping turn. The dumb-ass computer had aimed the ship at the slip-gate. By now, there could be a dozen angry patrol boats waiting there for us.
Steering away from the star, I chose a new path that would take longer, but would be much safer. Kersen would have his guns in eleven days. That would have to be fast enough.
Chapter Sixteen
We flew off the grid and into open space. The Conclave existed in a star-cluster which meant the stars were fairly close together. Instead of being five or ten lightyears apart, they were only one or two—sometimes less.
I had to stop myself from checking up on Sosa every few hours. It was eating away at me. Maybe if I’d moved quicker, or shot the shrade right from the start, she’d have had a better chance.
But second-guessing myself wasn’t my normal path through life. I liked to make new troubles rather than dwell on the old. I wasn’t a man that spent my time worrying about the past.
With Sosa however, I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. After all, I’d pretty much engineered this whole show. She hadn’t even signed on willingly, unlike Jort.
After the sixth day, I didn’t even go down to look anymore. I’d given up. When we went back to Kersen, maybe I’d ask for a funeral, or something. I doubted the old lizard would give a shit, but I’d try it anyway.
On the morning of the seventh day, I yawned and stretched in my hammock. Rolling over, I came awake with a lurch.
“Whoa! Where’d you come from, girl?” I demanded.
A young woman stood framed in the doorway of my cabin. At first, I barely recognized her. Then I realized who it had to be.
She was buck-naked and understandably confused.
“What happened to me?” Sosa asked. “Am I a clone or something?”
“Nah, there are no clones stored on this ship,” I scoffed.
“What then? Look at me.”
She did a slow staggering spin. She almost fell over as she was still unsteady on her feet. I watched her with interest. She looked better than ever. And not just because she was nude, I really thought she must feel much better without that nasty alien poking at her. She really seemed relieved and relaxed for the first time.
“We’ve got good medical on this ship, I guess,” I commented.
“Did I die?”
“Uh…”
“Never mind,” she said quickly, raising her hand when I began to answer. “I don’t want to know what happened. I’m back, I’m healed, and…”
A look of fresh shock came over her. She reached down to her side, about where the liver might be found. She probed herself, poking fingers at a pink area of skin right below her ribs. I watched the process with interest.
She looked up at me in shock. “I can’t feel my rider!”
Smiling, I nodded. “I shot them both. The parasite and that snake-like alien together. Want to see?”
With a face full of mixed horror and fascination, she nodded.
Laughing, I grabbed a towel off of my rack and threw it at her. She caught it and draped it over herself.
We moved to the lower deck. There, we found a puddle of dried muck on the deck.
“Huh. The bodies were right here. That damned robot must have carried the remains to the engineering chamber and dumped it all into the reactor core.”
“Yes…” Sosa said. “It’s scripted to do that with debris it finds on the deck.”
“I could’ve sold that mess to a collector. Damned robot.”
Shaking her head, Sosa walked away. I followed her, and I couldn’t help but notice those shapely legs in front of me. I wanted to ask her a few things.
“There was something strange about the whole thing,” I told her as she dressed in her cabin, and I pretended not to watch.
“What?”
“The shrade—I’ve seen a few aliens in operation before. They generally behave in a very logical fashion. They go for the worst threat and eliminate it.”
“Yeah, so?”
“This one didn’t act like that. At first, when I saw it was squeezing you to death with the android, I figured it was confused. But now that I’ve had a week to think about it—”
“I was in that frigging medical box for a whole week?”
“Uh… yeah. Pretty much.”
“Great… well, I’m glad to be back anyway. I’m glad to be free of my rider, too. I… I didn’t think I’d escape it except by dying.”
“It was a close thing, let me tell you. Anyway, I’ve had some time to think things over, and I don’t think the shrade was trying to kill you at all. It could have done that at any time. I think it was trying to squeeze that parasite out of you.”
At these words, Sosa flashed me a thoughtful glance. “What makes you say that?”
I relayed the scene to her as vividly as I could. She peered at me while I spoke.
“You fought to save me? You and Jort both? You risked your lives?”
“Uh… yeah. Pretty much. Don’t get too choked up, it was instinct. I’m sure you would have done the same thing for me.”
She studied the deck plates. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Anyway, I think the shrade was trying to get to your parasite. Even after it popped out of your belly—”
“Is that what happened?” she asked, horrified. She fingered the scarred patch under her ribs again, probing it gingerly.
“Pretty much, yeah. It popped out of you and the alien sprang right off and chased it down. The snake thing crushed the little monster before it could escape into the ship. That was its dying move. What kind of sense does that make?”
Sosa shook her head. “Sounds like your alien friends are as bad as mine.”
“But what would make it ignore two dangerous, armed men and go after a bug-like ball of spines?”
“Hate,” she said. “Sheer hate. Lots of creatures hate the Tulk.”
“The what?”
“My rider… that’s what they’re called. Tulk is the name of their race.”
“So…they’re intelligent? They have a society and all that?”
Sosa smiled. “Yes. They can talk and interact, but they rarely do so with humans. We’re like herd animals to them. Chattel. Possessions of little worth.”
“I see… I’ll tell you what. How about we have some breakfast and a drink? I’m buying.”
For the first time since she’d crawled out of the auto-doc box—one of the first times since I’d met her—she smiled at me. It was a thin smile, but it was unmistakable.
Chapter Seventeen
After Sosa had lost her rider, she was regularly in a good mood. I would even describe her as cheery. She often asked me or Jort about the incident later, asking for specific details. It was almost as if she couldn’t believe it and was trying to make sure it was true. I imagined she hadn’t had too many tight friends in her life. It made me wonder just how long that creature had been inside her.
“So… you two fought that thing? With your hands?”
“You want us to play back the security camera vids?”
She smiled. “No… I guess not. I just never… I don’t know.
Breathing hard, she pulled up her shirt. She ran her fingers over the reddened area. She probed gently at first—then with more vigor.
“It’s really gone…” she said in a distant voice. “I still can’t believe it.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
She looked up at me. Her eyes were unfocussed, unseeing. “That thing has been the curse of my life. This is incredible… but, Kersen...”
“Don’t worry about him. I’ll explain it to him.”
She snorted disbelievingly and pulled her shirt back down. “I’m sure you will, Captain. But in the meantime… thanks for helping me out.”
Smiling, I took a step closer. Now that she didn’t have that space-crab controlling her any longer, she might give me a chance. “Hey, how about you and I get—”
“No… I don’t think so. I’m tired. I’ll take a shift in my bunk, if you don’t mind.”
I opened my mouth for a snappy comment, but then closed it again. “Okay. See you when my watch ends.”
Moving up to the bridge, I saw Jort watching me sidelong.
“What?” I asked him.
“I wasn’t sure how that would go. I did not hear her scream. By the sour look on your face, I guess she didn’t jump you, either… She is still cold to you? Even now?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“A shame. You are her hero.”
We went back to watching space flow by. It was pretty boring. The stars ahead were all bluish, the ones behind, all red. It was an effect of moving at tremendous speeds without using a slip-gate.
A few days later, we reached Ceti and returned to the mooring under the space station. There, Kersen’s men met us with a grim attitude. They were armed with shredders, so I broke out a couple of the Sardez rifles and cradled one in my arms. Jort held the other.
The toughs at the dock raised their eyebrows at this.
“Are you crazy, Gorman?” one of them asked.
“I get that a lot.”
“You can’t fire a heavy combat rifle here. You’ll blow out the walls of this station and kill us all.”
I shrugged. “Why would I do that? I’m here to deliver the promised goods, not to start a firefight. More importantly, these rifles are the weapons Kersen wanted me to bring home.”
Grumbling, the men led us back to K
ersen. They kept their shredders slung over their shoulders, which was exactly what I wanted to see.
“Master Kersen will speak with you—but not if you’re armed.”
I popped out a power pack and threw it to the thug. He caught it.
“What about the rifle?”
“I want to show it to Kersen. That’s the whole damned point.”
He sighed, but he let me go in. The second he was out of sight I slammed a fresh pack into the base of the rifle. It hummed and glowed as if excited to kill.
Kersen saw us coming, and he stared. “You bring weapons?”
“I do. Jort, give him your rifle.”
Jort reluctantly handed his over. Sosa stood back—way back. She was wearing the heaviest garment I’d ever seen her in, some kind of tunic that erased all her curves. It took me a moment to realize she was trying to hide the fact she’d lost her rider. She stood motionless. I wondered if her simple ruse would work.
“This weapon is charged?” Kersen asked in astonishment.
“Sure it is, just as I promised. Three thousand rifles of the highest quality with two power packs each.”
Kersen eyed my rifle. “My guardians are very lax. I will correct them.”
“That’s fine. Now, about my payment…”
“You will get no payment!” Kersen boomed suddenly. Nothing seemed to piss him off more than the idea of parting with any amount of money. “But… I have discounted your debt to me by a generous fifteen percent.”
I shook my head. “No dice, Kersen. You said once we performed this mission, we were square.”
“Perhaps you misunderstood the terms.”
“Perhaps you misunderstand as well.” As I said these fateful words, I hefted my rifle.
Kersen had one too, but I didn’t think he was a crack shot. He wasn’t that kind of crime boss. He liked to operate from the back of the line, like a spider in a web.
“Thirty percent,” he said. “My final, and grossly overgenerous offer.”
“No. I’m done, we’re square with each other. These rifles are worth a million credits—as much as that ship, maybe.”
“Hmm, I might be persuaded to take you up on that deal,” he said thoughtfully, “but you’ll have to do another service for me.”
