by B. V. Larson
I didn’t dare, of course. I’d go into a tumble, unable to stop. When travelling in the lateral shafts, at least you could roll out of it and end up on lying on the bottom of the tube.
Not so in this shaft. I’d bang my body against one wall then carom over to the next—I doubted I could survive.
The fall went on for what felt like a long time. At points, I thought I saw other passages and doors at the sides of the tunnel—but I didn’t stop falling deeper into the planet’s crust.
That worried me a little, I don’t mind saying. What if our treacherous friend had turned off the automated features of this tube? Wouldn’t it look like this? Flashing by one stopping place after another in rapid succession, like a runaway train sailing through stations full of startled passengers at breakneck speed?
Soon, I became convinced that I’d been tricked. How easy it had been to best old McGill. Some salamander had left a door open as a baited trap, and I’d willingly jumped to my death like the true-blue fool that I really was inside.
-55-
Landing at last, I was relieved to find myself standing on my feet. The tubes had decelerated my mass at the last minute, leaving me in a comfortable stance.
That was about the only good news of the day, however, because the place I landed in was unlike anything else I’d encountered on Storm World.
It was a city. An underground city inside a vast cavern.
The feeling was similar to being outside. There wasn’t even much of an echo, so I knew the place was big. Really big.
What’s more, there was a wind whistling along—an actual underground wind. To me, that seemed weird.
Off to my left, I saw a river of sorts. Surprised I could see that at all without night vision toggled on, I realized there was light down here. It came from dim yellow globes of unknown girth that gripped the ceiling. Electrical? Chemical? I didn’t know, but they did give off a definite wan glow. Just enough to see by, like something a half-moon would do to light up your backyard on Earth.
Nearer at hand, encircling the landing pad area I’d ended up on, were a whole lot of Scuppers. Hundreds of them stood in loose ranks with their spears pointing in random directions.
At my sudden appearance, dropping down out of the ceiling with a war-whoop, the demeanor of the army changed. They came alive, no longer leaning on their spears but rather aiming them at me. The nearest fifty or so stalked forward, heads down, tails sticking out stiffly behind them for balance.
Automatically, I put on my best Georgia smile.
“Hey there,” I said, “well met, boys! I’m James McGill, and I’m a first-man.”
I’d turned on my translator, which gurgled and plopped in what I fervently hoped was an appropriate manner.
The front rank of advancing salamanders paused, glancing at one another and croaking in confusion.
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m here to find my second-man. He’s disappeared, and I’m hoping there’s a damned good explanation. I wouldn’t like to think any Scupper was a cowardly deserter.”
One of them nosed through to the front. He was a big green specimen, both taller and broader than my own second-man. This Scupper had some meat on his bones.
“You speak insults? You dare come here and call us cowards?”
“Not all of you,” I said. “Just the man who swore allegiance to me, then bolted when battle came. He’s the one I want to talk to.”
“You mouth impossibilities. No Scupper would serve a human. No Scupper officer would abandon his station without being destroyed by his own men.”
“Is that so? Well, take a look at this video on my tapper.”
I held up my arm, and they shuffled closer, blinking in suspicion. Soon, they caught on as I played a vid of my second-man fighting at my side on the walls of Fort Alpha.
“You see that? He was a good sort, until the boys from Rigel landed. Then, he bolted.”
“Ah,” said Big Green, lowering his spear and placing the butt of it in the dark, wet, sandy soil. “Now I understand. He would of course retreat from battle with Rigel. Honor would demand no less.”
It was my turn to stand and stare in confusion. “Uh… why’s that?”
“Because Rigel troops are our guests here. Just as you are.”
“Guests? They’re invaders.”
“Maybe to you, but not to the natives of this world. I see you don’t understand. Perhaps you are as simple as the other humans we’ve met.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight, my amphibious friend,” I said, as thoughts clicked into place inside my thick skull. “You asked us for help against the Wur, correct?”
“Yes. Earth is strong. We needed troops, so we called for your aid.”
“And we answered with two legions. But… if I don’t miss my guess, you guys also made the same plea to Rigel. Right?”
The salamander shook his sucker-cupped fingers at me. “Of course. We would have been fools to do anything else. You are strong. They are strong. We needed help, so we requested it from everyone who might be able to help us.”
“Didn’t you see how that might cause trouble? Between Rigel and Earth, that is?”
Again, the big green bastard shook his cups at me. I was beginning to think the gesture was equivalent to a human shrug of the shoulders.
“That was of no concern. The Wur have eaten up half our landmass. There was no time or enthusiasm at the prospect of picking sides. We had no way of knowing if either Rigel or Earth would even show up to help.”
Slowly, I began nodding. I was able to see the Scupper’s reasoning. They were like a small country under attack from a larger one. Desperate, they sent envoys to all the local powers for help. They got both of us to show up—but from their point of view that was way better than choosing one and being ignored.
“All right,” I said. “I can accept all that for now. But how does that absolve my second-man? He still ran out on me, no matter why he did it.”
“That was a matter of honor, as I said. Your auditory organs seem to fail you often, despite their great size and ugly nature.”
He reached out a glistening finger and poked at my ears. I pulled back in irritation.
“I heard you,” I said, “but I don’t get how honor can force a man to desert his post.”
“It’s simple enough. We invited both of you. If you choose to fight one another, we can’t interfere.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I wasn’t born yesterday, and even if I had been, this story would have stunk up the gigantic cave I was standing in.
“One of you frogs must have been bright enough to know that we’d fight if we met up together. This whole thing was a setup from the beginning.”
The green guy waved his fingers again. Another shrug of disinterest.
Now, I’ve never been known to have a short fuse—but I’ve definitely got a long one, and I’d reached the end of it at last.
Reaching out and grabbing hold of his waggling hand, I gave it a yank, pulling him toward me, off his feet.
He stumbled forward, croaking in surprise. A dozen or so of his soldiers became alert, gripping their weapons and encircling us.
“Maybe I should fight you,” I said. “You’re a first-man, aren’t you? Maybe I’ll make you my second. Or maybe I’ll make your second serve me instead.”
“Have a care, human brute. You are not a welcome guest here now, as we are already entertaining another. We cannot have both. Do not make us force you from this place.”
I let go of his hand, and he snatched it back, working it as if it was sore. It probably was.
“You already have a guest?” I demanded. “Who?”
“That is of no concern—”
Suddenly, the light went on inside my fridge. I smiled and grabbed hold of the slimy green bastard again.
“You’ve got a Rigel-man here, don’t you? Where is he?”
He pulled away from me. “I informed you, we cannot have two guests in conflict—not here.”
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“No problem! I won’t be here long. When my legion arrives, we’ll make short work of this dump of a place and leave what’s left behind for Rigel.”
He listened to the translation and looked at me warily. “You are alone. You will not return to your fortress if you make threats.”
“Want to kill me, huh? It won’t matter. You know we men from the stars live a thousand lives, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard such fantasies, but I disregard them.”
“Well, how about this: did your spy tell you I was alone when I entered the tunnels?”
He paused. “We have no spies.”
I laughed. My translator gurgled at him.
“Aw, come on, green-finger. I saw him when we first came down here. He bolted to tell you we’d entered the tunnels. We chased him, and he ran straight here.”
“You are mistakenly speaking in the plural form. You are alone, Earth man, and—”
Here, another form slunk up to join us. It was a brown salamander, built with a long neck and short limbs that left him low to the ground as he approached.
“First-Man,” he said, “I beg to speak.”
“You dare much, but I will allow it.”
The brown slime-ball eyed me repeatedly as he gave his report. “The brute speaks correctly, First-Man. There were two of them when they first came down—maybe more. I can’t know, as I returned to make my report as ordered.”
The green bastard backhanded him, sending him rolling ass-over-tea-kettle onto the dark sand. “You dishonor us all with your words!”
The spy scuttled off, and the green officer turned back to look at me.
“Where is your companion?” he demanded.
Lifting my fingers, I did my best to imitate his waggling gesture of disinterest.
“Who knows?” I asked. “He’s not here, but he knows how to get here. As I said, when my army comes—”
Big Green changed his attitude in a flash. He was pissed.
“You’ve come here to our sacred city to deliver idle threats?” he demanded. “You are no ally of ours! You are rude. You are duplicitous. You are unpleasant in both manner and appearance.”
“That might all be true,” I said, waggling fingers at him again to show him how little I cared. “But we humans are better killers than your people are, and we’ve been deceived. Do you really want to find out what my troops can do against your pathetic army of spearmen?”
His eyes shifted, gazing around himself at the watching, listening troops.
“What is it you propose?” he asked at last.
That’s when my grin came back—right then, and not a moment sooner. We’d just had ourselves a good, old-fashioned country stare-down, and Big Green had blinked first.
“Do you frogs really lay eggs?” I asked Big Green. “We’re low on fresh meat back at the fort, and real predators like us humans only enjoy fresh meat.”
He had twin eyes the size of cue balls on top of his head, and they popped out a little.
I laughed.
“Nah…” I said. “Just kidding! We don’t eat babies. Adults-only.”
“You are an unpleasant being.”
“So people keep telling me... Now, listen up big guy. This is how things are going to go down.”
The first-man listened, but as he did so, his eyes began to puff up again. By the time I was done, I was wondering if his eyeballs were going to fall out and roll away on the sandy floor of the cavern.
-56-
Big Green obeyed me with a decidedly poor attitude. He led me deeper into the cavern along a sandy road. The road wove between lagoons of lapping black pools, fields of mushrooms and racks of blind, pale-skinned cavefish. It wasn’t paved, but it was well-used enough and clearly marked.
As time passed, my eyes adjusted so I could see farther into the cavern. It was a gloomy place, several kilometers wide and deep. The roof was only a few hundred meters above our heads, and it was covered with moss and vast hanging stalactites that resembled fangs festooning the roof. Now and then, we passed a fallen pile of shattered rock, and I realized that anyone unlucky enough to be under one of these stone daggers would surely be killed when it fell.
That would be a certain perming if it happened to me now. That’s what I was thinking about, and it made me feel kind of itchy.
After all, I had no idea where Cooper was at the moment. He might be stealthing along in my wake—or he might have gone back to the surface. It was hard to tell, and he hadn’t bothered to give me any clue as to his whereabouts or his intentions.
But Big Green didn’t know that. It was funny how often a small missing bit of knowledge could expand to be worth a man’s life.
All around me, big Scupper-feet slapped and crunched on the sand. I whistled as we marched along to pass the time. After a few minutes, Big Green turned to me and croaked in irritation.
“Could you stop making that noise?” he asked. “It sounds like the squall of a dying mollusk.”
“Really?” I asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a mollusk make a sound that I could hear.”
I kept right on whistling, of course. If a man can’t face mortal danger in his own way, well, there’s no justice in the universe.
Besides, my careless willingness to irritate my hosts could only serve to prove to them that I was feeling confident. A man’s boasting could be easily unraveled by hesitation and overthinking. When you’re living a lie, you’ve got to go all the way.
In time, a bigger structure loomed ahead of us. It wasn’t a nice-looking place. It was more like an underground termite-mound made out of dark gray basalt stone.
“Huh…” I said as we passed inside the mouth of the main entrance. “Is this some kind of cathedral?”
Big Green puzzled over that for a moment. “It does have mystical significance,” he agreed. “But the word you’ve chosen is improper. We call it the Citadel.”
“Fair enough. Lead on.”
He eyed me in annoyance before again complying with my commands.
His irritation made me feel good. Sort of… prideful. I swear, a man like me could get pretty far with an arrogant attitude and a believable bluff. Today was proof-positive.
As per my instructions, Big Green didn’t announce my arrival. He just marched me into the heart of the place, leaving his army outside the gates. We got plenty of looks from the locals, but no one stopped us outright. I gathered from that simple fact that my escort was respected and highly ranked.
I didn’t care either way, of course. I had bigger fish to fry.
When we arrived at last and stepped into a cold chamber full of black, ashy stone, I halted. There, squatting on a dark throne, was another Scupper. She was similar in appearance, but vastly over-sized.
The throne itself was at least a ton of polished black stone. Ebony? Dark quartz? I couldn’t tell, and I barely cared.
What caught my attention were two key details. One was the massive queen herself. An outsized Scupper big enough to fit her massive throne, she was at least shaped like her smaller subjects. She was as big in comparison to Big Green as one of our Blood Worlder giants would be if they stood side-by-side. If I had to guess, I didn’t think I’d come up to the top of her folded, warty kneecap.
But the second thing that caught my eye was even less pleasant. The queen—because that’s what I’d deduced she was—was in the midst of entertaining another visitor.
The nature of this visitor was known to me. Short, stocky, and generally bear-like in appearance, the creature appeared to be in a conversation with the hulking monarch on the throne.
A Rigellian.
There was no getting around it. They’d made it down here before us—and now I was face-to-face with one of them.
The alien turned to look at me. He didn’t jump up or draw a weapon. He didn’t nod or wave. He just stared at me.
That let me know that Big Green had kept his word. He’d led me here unannounced. The little bastard was surprised to see me.
Two steps forward, and I placed my fists on my hips.
“I’m Centurion James McGill,” I said loudly. “Emissary from Earth. I’m here to demand an audience with the Scupper queen.”
The queen, for all her bulk, spoke quietly in deep tones. “This is… unexpected.”
“It’s rude,” the Rigellian said in a strange voice. It spoke with a warbling, underwater sound, as if it had already drowned in one of the inky black pools that dotted the cavern. “It is foul, and it is known to me.”
That made me blink. My mouth, already open wide, sagged and I stopped talking. Leaning forward and peering in the poor light, I finally released a bray of laughter.
“I know you!” I boomed. “You’re that pathetic dummy I met back on Dark World. How’s tricks, dumb-ass?”
My translator clicked and chirped. The necklace of metallic snake-bones that hung around his neck did the same. At last, the small figure turned away from the queen’s towering shins and walked toward me confidently.
“At last we meet again. Perhaps all your words were not lies—as you have come again into my presence. This cannot be fate or chance.”
I wasn’t too sure about that, but I thought I’d let it ride.
“That’s for certain,” I said. “I’m here to square things up between you and me. Last time out, you managed to drive humanity off Dark World. That can’t stand. This planet is going to ally with Earth.”
The bear-dude tilted his head. “You spout grandiose concepts,” he said. “None of your fantasies shall come to pass. I’ve concluded a bargain with the queen. Earth has been defeated by the Wur, and you by Rigel. You’ve been publicly shamed, and you shall be whipped from here as is only right.”
I laughed loudly. “What? The Wur didn’t beat us! We sent them packing just yesterday.”
“One battle does not a war make. You’ve lost one of your legions and one of two fortifications. Your ship has fled from ours. That makes a string of humiliating defeats.”
“Not so fast,” I said. “We beat your asses inside our walls. That’s right, you dropped right on top of us, and you were wiped out down to the last bear cub.”
