Everyone nodded. The Saurians shuffled their feet, snorted, and hissed a reply.
Takamura looked at Kate. “Do our friends have any problems? Any questions?”
“No,” said Kate. “If you want to know the truth, I think they’re itchy for some action ...”
Takamura seemed put off by her reply, but he forced a smile, anyway. “Well, I hope they don’t get their way,” he said stiffly. Then: “Okay, everybody ... let’s go.”
Phineas followed the entire file into the cave, now flooded with the beams of torchlights. The interior dirt and rock soon surrendered to a metallic flooring which ran past an array of machinery. It pulsed with a rhythmic, low-register thunk-thunk. The floor gradually sloped down to join a catwalk, or gangway, as Takamura had described it.
As everyone climbed upon it, Phineas tried to keep himself oriented. The group was headed toward the control-section of the ship, and, from the looks of the superstructure which surrounded them in the darkness, it appeared that Takamura’s observation had been correct. They were walking along a bulkhead, a pocket between the outer hull and the interior boundaries (actually, the ground) of the Mesozoic Preserve.
The almost total darkness of the bulkhead passage was broken up by small utility lamps spaced every thirty meters or so. Their dull amber glow cast long shadows across the burnished metal walls, imparting a spooky atmosphere to the place. The farther along the group trekked, the more agitated the Saurians seemed to be getting. Several times, both Kate and Visigoth were forced to stop and discuss the matter with the troops. The second instance ended with Visigoth suddenly smacking one of his charges alongside his head. Discipline was not much of a problem in the warrior-caste.
After exchanging a few words with Visigoth, Kate moved back to join Phineas. Her harried expression was something he had not seen much.
“Problems?” he asked.
“Maybe. They’re not exactly wild about walking down this narrow, dark passage. It’s very alien to them. Making them restless.” Kate looked at him with those big eyes as green as the sea. She had the eyes, no doubt about it.
“Well, you can’t blame them, can you?” he said. “They’re just a bunch of dumb grunts, and they’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“I know, but it scares me ...”
Phineas grinned. “Well, try looking at it their way: how would you like it if all of a sudden somebody took you down beneath your basement, and you found out that what you always thought was the good old solid Earth was really just a bunch of stage props, held together with some chewing gum and bailing wire?”
“You’re right,” said Kate. “It’s got to be more than unsettling. It’s probably got them terrified.”
“Of course it does. That’s why they’re hot for a fight. At least that would be something familiar to them.”
She sighed and glanced up at the Warriors as they trudged onward. “I guess I’m not being much help. It sounds like you understand their cultural problems a lot better than I do.”
If she was fishing for compliments, he decided not to bite. “Well, I’ve been around them longer than you, that’s all. Plus, I have a feeling that all soldiers think alike—no matter what the species.”
Up ahead, Takamura was signaling for the column to halt. His voice echoed along the passageway. “Let’s take a rest right along here. Any objections?”
Visigoth passed along the message to his troops, but the Saurians remained standing in the center of the gangway, nervously looking back and forth in the dim, amber light.
“I’d better see if I can help the General,” said Kate. “See you later.”
“Right,” said Phineas. “I’m going up and see how things are going with Takamura.”
He edged past the Saurians, unable to ignore their pungent body odor. They smelled particularly foul when they were in a fighting spirit. How in hell did Kate stand it? Cavoli and Krolczyk nodded as he passed, but Becky and Takamura did not look up from the portable instruments they had unpacked.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
The professor looked up for a moment, then back at the readout panel on the betatron scanner, “See this buttress right here?”
Phineas looked at the metallic brace which Takamura had indicated and nodded. “Sure.”
“Its molecular bonding is breaking down.”
“Why?”
Takamura shrugged. “Hard to tell. Age. Radiation. Stress from the FTL jump ... who knows? I’m going to test other points along the hull superstructure as we move through here to see how widespread the weaknesses are.”
“Which means?” Phineas hated the way scientists always assumed you knew what the hell they were talking about.
“Well, for one thing, I think we’ve found the cause of the ship-quakes. It’s like the tectonic plates in the Earth, with opposing pressures building up and building up and finally the plates slip a little ... and I see the same things happening here, but on a smaller scale, of course.”
“But large enough to cause problems,” said Becky.
Phineas wondered when she had become an expert in physics, but caught himself for being so damned petty.
“But how can parts of the ship be ‘slipping’?” he asked. “Isn’t it all connected together? Welded, or whatever?”
“Yes, of course,” said Takamura. “But that does not keep the ship from being subjected to various stress-vectors and torques. Imagine the hull being twisted along its longitudinal axis. Instead of actual slippage, the molecular bonding in buttresses such as this one get ‘stretched,’ and therefore weakened.”
Kemp nodded. “I’m going to have to take your word for it, Dr. Is the ship in any danger because of it?”
Takamura shrugged. “Possibly. It depends upon the extent of the bonding damage.”
“You mean this tub could just break apart at any moment?”
The idea stung him deeply. One more thing to worry about when things seemed like they might be going too well.
“Well, it’s not likely ... but it could happen, yes.”
Becky had slipped on a communications headset. “You want me to relay back to Dr. Jakes and the rest of the Council?”
Takamura nodded. “Yes, give them our position and the latest data. Tell them we’ll keep them posted.”
“How far along are we?” asked Phineas. “Now that you mention it.”
“We’re under the Saurian Preserve, about halfway till we reach ‘World’s End.’”
“And then what?”
Takamura grinned thinly. “I don’t know.”
“You about ready to find out?”
“Yes. Let’s get them moving again.”
* * *
The group pushed ahead for another two hours. Occasionally they paused to run instrument surveys on pieces of the hull’s superstructure; twice they encountered banks of machinery, which Takamura inspected. The alien machinery had a familiar “look” or design to it, but Phineas didn’t have the foggiest notion as to what any of it was. Bob Jakes and Takamura’s research team had supposedly been learning about the alien technology back when they still had access to the control-section of the ship. He had no idea what they had learned or not learned.
Phineas was tiring of the monotonous walking, with an infrequent glance over his shoulder. There was nothing to see back there, other than an endlessly long pathway, defined by amber pools of light which grew ever smaller and weaker in the distance. He considered calling out to Kate, to invite her back for some small talk as they walked along. He needed something to help pass the time. He considered the situation with Linden’s strange condition, but like Lombardy and Takamura, came up blank on the subject.
The Saurians seemed to have settled down. No longer were they snorting and hissing and turreting their heads back and forth almost constantly. They seemed to have accepted the
alienness of the passageway and its apparently harmless nature. For the past hour or so they had been shambling forward, heads slightly bowed, shoulders hunched, and tails hanging low.
Abruptly that all changed.
Phineas watched all five Warriors’ heads snap up at once, immediately alert. They stopped walking, and Kate moved on ahead for about ten paces before noticing that something was happening. She paused and looked back, then signaled to Takamura.
“What’s the matter?” Phineas asked as he approached. Visigoth. A redolent aura of Saurian odors wafted over him. Was it the smell of fear? Of a fight? He could not discern it.
For a long moment, the caste leader did not acknowledge him.
The Saurian remained rigid, like his mates, as though they’d risked a look at Medusa.
Kate was suddenly by his side. She reached out and touched his arm, and Phineas could feel the warmth of her hand penetrate his sleeve. It was a pleasant warmth.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen any of them like this.” There was the first hint of panic in Kate’s voice.
Now Takamura and the others were crowding along the gangway, everyone looking from the Saurians to Kate and Phineas.
“What is it?” asked the professor.
“I don’t know,” said Kemp. “They were walking along and they all just stopped, got real tense.”
“It looks like they’re listening to something,” said Becky.
Phineas touched Visigoth’s muscular shoulder. “Hey, big guy ... anybody home?”
“Careful,” said Kate. “That might be the wrong thing to do ... we don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
Phineas nodded and stepped back several paces, raising the HK to his waist. if any of those lizards made a wrong move he’d cut them in half.
Slowly then, Visigoth lowered his head, blinked his eyes, and spoke to Kate. The other Saurians were in an agitated state again, and Phineas could see their nostrils flaring, their fingers tightening upon their pikes.
What the hell was going on?
“They were listening to something—” Kate said as soon as her translator completed the message in her headset.
“What?” said Takamura, interrupting her.
“Something up ahead,” she said. “Something coming this way.”
SOMETHING was coming this way.
Kate’s words lingered in his mind like an unwelcome guest.
There was a fist tightening in Mishima’s throat, and at the same time, he felt as though he might have an attack of diarrhea. Just what he needed—to crap his pants just when things were getting complicated. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for his command, and here he was worrying about letting loose in his jumpsuit ...
But none of them could know that, and he was, after all, in charge of the expedition. He was responsible for everyone. That was what their looks were telling him. He had to do something.
“What is it?” he asked in a soft voice. “Did they tell you what it is?”
Kate shook her head. “No. They don’t know. But they hear its footsteps. ’Goth says it has ‘hard feet,’ like our boots, only harder. Like the walls.”
“Like metal?” asked Kemp. “Is that what he means?”
“Phineas, I’m not sure. He’s having a hard time expressing it. There might not be a Saurian word for it. I don’t know.”
“Great,” said Kemp.
“How far away?” asked Mishima as he addressed the Saurian General.
Visigoth tilted his head, listened to the translation, then barked out a reply.
“Too far for humans to hear,” said Kate.
“That doesn’t tell us a hell of a lot,” said Kemp.
“You want we should go on up ahead and see what it is, Doc?” Cavoli stepped forward, sporting an incongruous grin.
Mishima hesitated, wondering what might be the best decision in this case. He looked quickly from the tactical man to Kemp, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Mishima then turned back to Cavoli.
“Yes, do it while we still have the element of surprise. Take ’Goth and a couple of his friends along. I’ll come with you.”
“You got it!” said Cavoli. Patting the stock of his heavy assault rifle, he started forward.
Visigoth’s translator rattled off the last pieces of the conversation. The caste leader then selected two of his charges and gestured that they follow him.
Mishima looked at the rest of the group. Maybe it was just his imagination, but they all looked rather stunned that he was going along. He was a bit stunned himself. His stomach was ablaze, his bowels churning like a mill. He should face it: he was not cut out to be much of a hero.
But there was no turning back now.
Looking at Becky, he said: “I’ll keep in touch by radio. Just keep your channel open.”
“No problem. Be careful,” she said.
Mishima nodded, looked over at Kemp;, He wanted to say thanks, but he knew it would be inappropriate. “Colonel, you and Krolczyk can keep an eye on things back here.”
“I should think so,” said Kemp.
“All right, then. Let’s go.”
Mishima headed up the small group as they moved quickly down the gangway. Soon, they had left the rest of the team far behind, wrapped in the dull shadows of the passage.
What were they rushing forward to meet? A beast, somehow lost in the bulkhead? He wished it were something so simple, so familiar. No, it was unlikely that a dinosaur would have wandered so far away from its native environment. More likely it was an alien species, one of the makers of the Dragonstar, stirring from some secret place in the control-section.
Mishima did not know what to make of such a thought. It had long been an accepted theory that the crew of the Dragonstar had abandoned the ship eons ago. Now, thinking that some of them might have remained on board was oddly terrifying to him..
And that should not be so. Hadn’t the alien designers of the vessel left elaborate dioramas and teaching machines to explain the purpose of the “seed ship”? Such thoughtfulness spoke of a benign intelligence, did it not?
Perhaps. But the Dragonstar had recently turned upon its guests—unleashing the radiation which drove some of the Saurians mad, then sealing off the interior and jumping off into hyperspace. Didn’t sound very benign, did it?
Cavoli and Visigoth walked ahead of him, the other two Warriors behind him. The strong odor of the Saurians reminded him of graduate school summers when he worked as a masseur at the beef salon in Kobe. His job had been to feed the steers Kirin beer and give their flanks a tenderizing massage twice a day. He wished he was back in Kobe at this very moment. The Earth seemed so far away, so alien, as to be nothing more than a place in a fairy tale.
Mishima shook his head slowly. What a bad dream this all had become ... He wanted to see what was ahead, and yet he didn’t. Why had he tagged along? His presence would be a hindrance if there was trouble, and he should have admitted it to himself before volunteering.
Suddenly, the Saurian General stopped, tilting his head to the side, listening. He hissed and barked out a short-message which his translator—now on loudspeaker mode—processed as quickly as possible: “It comes closer.”
“Hey!” said Cavoli. “I hear it, too!”
Mishima moved past the Saurian General and concentrated. Yes, there it was—a rhythmic cadence which suggested a steady gait. Something walking toward them wearing hard-soled boots, which tapped out a telegraphic message of its journey.
For another moment, the group stood in silence listening to the steady tap-tap-tap of the footsteps. Whatever it was, it was moving briskly and with confidence. There was a steady, machine-like aspect to the sound.
“Hey, what’re we gonna do here?” asked Cavoli. “We can’t be all bunched up on this walkway—it’s too c
rowded!”
Mishima looked over the low railing. The gangway was suspended over the outer hull plates at a height of less than two meters. If everyone climbed over, they might gain an element of surprise. He offered his idea to the others, and before he realized it, Cavoli and the Saurians were heaving themselves over the side of the catwalk. He followed their example and hunkered down in the shadows next to a support beam.
From his position, he still had a good line-of-sight angle on the walkway. He would see what was coming before it had a chance to spot him unless it possessed sensory powers he hadn’t counted on.
The tap-tap-tap of its relentless approach was much louder now. It walked with a boldness which suggested that it didn’t care if it was heard or discovered. And that meant it was either very stupid or very confident.
“Jeez, it sounds like it’s gettin’ pretty close,” said Cavoli.
“Don’t do anything unless I give the word,” said Mishima, feeling suddenly silly, and inappropriate in the role of leader.
Visigoth passed along the command to his two charges, and the entire group remained huddled in waiting. The tap-tap-tap grew absurdly loud. Mishima looked up into the dwindling void of the gangway and saw a dim spidery shadow take form on the outer bulkhead. Whatever was coming toward them had just passed one of the amber auxiliary lamps.
“Get ready,” said Mishima.
Cavoli raised his weapon. The Saurians seemed to be coiling up like snakes ready to spring.
The approaching shadow suddenly took form and substance. Emerging from the darkness and ambling along as though it were out for a walk in the park, the thing strolled past the men and lizards who waited in ambush.
A robot!
Mishima was both shocked .and relieved to see the mechanical construct walk briskly past them. Looking like a four-legged daddy longlegs, the robot scissored along the gangway at a smooth pace. It sported two multijointed arms but with no hands, claws, or other recognizable ends. Standing up, Mishima clapped his hands, but the robot walked on, ignoring the sound.
Dragonstar Destiny Page 10
