by John Shirley
“Ha, well, I …” He straightened up and glanced at the ceiling. “I suppose so. I mean—it is Flemmel, really, who is in disgrace. I am, after all, higher in tunnel status than Flemmel anyway. I am the one who created the very trap that trapped you!”
“Right! It’s only fair …”
“I was thinking along the same lines. And so my dear …” He reached through the bars with his free hand and touched her forearm. The grime and grease on his fingers left a mark on her skin.
Don’t retch.
Broncus frowned, aware of a movement to his left. He looked—and she reached through the bars, grabbed the gun. She had a good grip on it by the muzzle.
He squawked, made a hasty grab for the gun—and someone clasped him roughly from behind. It was Cal, using all his strength to try to hold Broncus in place.
She knew he couldn’t hold Broncus long. The tunnel rat opened his mouth to shout for help—and she swung the gun, hard, down between the bars, onto Broncus’s forehead—with all the strength of a mother desperate to rescue her child.
His eyes crossed, he made a gargling sound … and slumped in Cal’s arms.
Cal let the tunnel rat drop. “Is he dead?”
“He’s still alive. If I had a knife … never mind. You’re right—this planet has had an effect on me. Just get the key to the cell from his pocket—and get the gas mask from him. We’ll find something to tie him up and gag him with. We’ll need his clothes too …”
They dragged Broncus into the cell, used a belt and a dirty strap from his clothing to tie him, gagging him with some rags from the cell. Marla stripped him, forced his clothes on over hers, and put on the mask.
The whole process only took about ten minutes but it felt like a lot more—Marla was expecting the other tunnel rats at any moment. But it was daytime, and no one came to check on them. When they were locking the cell door, Broncus began to wake, wriggling and moaning through his gag.
I should kill him, really, to make sure he stays quiet, she thought.
But she couldn’t do it with Cal there. He’d seen enough. He shouldn’t have to see his mother slit a helpless man’s throat.
“Come on,” she muttered. “Put your hands behind you, Cal.”
He obeyed, and she tied his hands loosely behind him, with pieces of cloth. Hopefully no one would look closely at his bonds.
“But which way do we go?” he asked.
“Keep your voice down, son. I know which way to go. Two Finger Frank left me a message …”
“Who?”
“We’ve got a lot to tell each other later. Go on. I’m gonna poke you in the back with this gun to make it look good …”
“Okay, Mom.”
“If we run into anybody, keep your mouth shut, and for God’s sake don’t call me Mom.”
“Mom, I’m not stupid.”
She took the lantern in one hand, the gun in the other, and prodded her son, muttering directions to him. She kept her finger away from the trigger.
They started off down the dark stone corridor and turned right, following Frank’s directions.
You go out this hole, head right, take a left turn, then a right and go all the way to the old elevator shaft. The elevator may or may not work.
They got past the first two turns without encountering a tunnel rat. They encountered only roots dangling from the ceiling in one spot, and a heap of human bones. The last corridor led to an elevator, like an old freight elevator, near the end. It was open; a lantern hung inside, throwing light down the corridor.
But there was a tunnel rat, dozing with a shotgun cradled in his arms, leaning against the wall near the elevator, his face mask pushed back. She didn’t recognize him.
Marla’s finger moved closer to the trigger on the submachine gun. Cal kept walking. She kept walking, past the tunnel rat. The elevator was just a few steps farther.
“That elevator’s broken,” the tunnel rat said suddenly.
She nodded, stopped her son by grabbing his shoulder. In her best imitation of Broncus’s voice, she hissed, “Not that way, prisoner.”
“You going to see the Engineer, huh?” the tunnel rat asked, scratching himself.
“Yes … ,” she said, afraid to say more.
“We going to eat that one? Scrawny. Hope we eat the woman too.”
“Yes. This way, prisoner.” She pushed Cal to the left.
“Wait—that’s not the way to the Engineer!” the tunnel rat said. “And you’ve got Broncus’s markings on your mask but the voice …”
She turned on her heel, fingering the trigger, and fired from the hip. She caught him across the middle, stitching him with bullets. The shots sounded insanely loud in the corridor. The tunnel rat seemed to dance in place against the wall, then he slid down, eyes glazing, leaving a smear of blood.
“Wow,” Cal muttered.
“Never mind!” She pulled the loose bonds off Cal’s wrists. “Get the shotgun!”
He grabbed the gun and they dodged off to the left—unsure where they were going now. Hoping for a stairs …
Shouts came from behind them, down the corridor. The voices were high-pitched, near hysteria. “Gunshots! Prisoner escape!”
Then Cal said, “This is the way they brought me—that room with the chute … Look, there it is!”
He led the way to the right, into a storeroom cut out of sandstone. A lantern on the ceiling illuminated odds and ends of equipment and one dead skag all piled in a corner. In the opposite corner a metal chute, somewhat dented, slanted up to the ceiling. It reminded Marla of a children’s slide. At the top a closed hatch fitted flush with the ceiling.
“Go on, Cal! Up!”
“You first, Mom!”
“Just go, you can help me through after you get up there!”
He climbed partway up the chute, holding on to the side and using the dents, but it was too difficult with the shotgun and he slipped, slid back down on his stomach, using words she’d thought he hadn’t known.
She took the shotgun. “Go on!”
He climbed again—and now she heard running feet from the hall outside the room.
“Hurry up, Cal!”
He got to the top, held on with one hand, the other trying the bolt lock on the hatch.
She turned toward the door, in time to loose a burst from the submachine gun at the tunnel rat stepping into view. He shouted and spun, and another stepped up—then dodged back as she fired the shotgun with her other hand, bracing it on her hip. The recoil made her stagger, almost fall, and the shot went wide but the tunnel rats were momentarily cowed, holding back.
“You go, Grinkus! You have the big gun!”
“I? You go, damn you, Skoink!”
“Mom—I got it open! I … who’s that?”
She turned—and saw someone reach down through a dazzling square of light, grab Cal by the collar, and drag him up. She emptied her clip at the door, then dropped the guns and turned to the chute, clambered up it as best she could. A gunshot sounded behind her and a bullet hummed by her right ear. Then she was at the top of the chute, and someone was pulling her out into the sunshine.
They stood blinking in the bright light, gaping at Vance and their surroundings. They were at the base of a cliff, on the edge of the plain. Above them rose the broken blue cinder cone.
“Get out of the way,” Vance growled.
He pushed her aside and fired a combat rifle down through the hatch. Someone down there screamed. Vance kicked the hatch shut and turned to grin at her.
“Thought I’d forgotten all about you, huh?”
She stared. “You’re out here, not down there. But I appreciate the help.”
“I’ve been hanging around here, thinking about going down, looking for you. Just about had myself talked out of it—then I saw the hatch open.”
“We better get outta here!” Cal said, looking around. He found what he was looking for—a large rock, just small enough for him to lift it. He dropped it atop the hatch. “Might hold
’em awhile.”
“Those bastards won’t come up no-how,” Vance said. “Not in the daylight.” He looked Cal over. “This is your kid, huh? Sure is—”
“I’m not scrawny,” Cal interrupted. “Thanks for your help, mister. We’re gonna find Roland. I think I know where the camp is …”
“Naw, kid. You’re coming with me. You and the lady here are valuable to me. For different reasons. You might make a good hostage. And your mom—well, she proved herself useful lotsa ways.”
Marla felt her face flush but she said only, “All we want is to find a way off this planet. We’re not interested in that crashed ship. You can have all that, Vance.”
“I do plan to have all that, yeah,” he said, grinning. He pointed the combat rifle at her. “I found a way up to that volcano. And we’re gonna see what’s up there.”
“That site’s dangerous,” she said. “We’re already too close to it. Two Finger Frank said that it was …” Her voice trailed off. She could see by his expression she was wasting her breath. He was going to do everything his way.
He cocked his head, eyebrows lifted. “You say Two Finger Frank? I knew that guy! He worked for my gang for a while—then he swiped some guy’s DropCraft and left the planet. You sure get around, Marla girl. Yeah Broomy almost killed him when he ran out on her, one night, and he just kept going. Stole an outrider from Grunj … It’s a long story. Maybe later. We’re going to follow the base of the cliff, that way.” He pointed east. “You won’t believe what I found … tracks that disappear into a wall!”
“I’ve gotta find Roland!” Cal said. “Come on, Mom. I don’t think this guy’s going to shoot us.”
He took her hand and tried to tug her away—the direction opposite the one Vance wanted to go in.
Vance strode up and backhanded Cal, hard, so the boy fell on his back, nose bloodied.
Marla shouted and ran blindly at Vance, raising her fists—he struck her down too. Then he stood over them and said, “Kid’s right about one thing. I won’t shoot you—because I don’t have to shoot you. I can beat you to a pulp and drag you along on a rope. Or you can do what I tell you. Your choice.”
Berl and Zac were hunkering behind a boulder, within thirty meters of the edge of the debris field.
“Now, young feller,” Berl said, “what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna use you to keep the monitor occupied.”
“What’s the monitor?” Zac asked.
“You’ll see it soon enough—and you’ll know it when you see it.”
Zac shook his head. “Where’s that combat rifle of yours?”
Berl frowned, reached under his pack, and pulled up the rifle. “Right here. You’re not thinking I’m gonna let you have it, are ya?”
“No. Point it at me and shoot me. Because I’m not doing a thing till you give me more information. The more I know—the better my chances.”
Berl’s frown became a scowl. He glanced up at Bizzy, standing close by, leaning close as if listening. He looked back at Zac. Then he said, “The monitor is something the ship uses to keep watch on the area around it. It’s shaped like a kind of flyin’ manta ray, if you ever saw one of them—I saw one in an aquarium once when I was—”
“Berl? Let’s stick to the main ideas, man. Hey, how come you talk about the ship like it’s a person?”
“I expect it’s the ship’s computer doing all this. And it’s what they call an artificial intelligence. An AI. It’s the computer’s job to keep the damn ship going—though chances are whoever rode in that ship is long dead.”
“The monitor—does it have weapons on it?”
“Not exactly weapons. Tentacles, like. And—it can order the UnderBodies around. Like one of those things that grabbed your leg. And the ones that get into people’s heads—they can control the Psychos, some animals …”
“Wait—is that how you control Bizzy?”
Berl smiled sheepishly. “It is. I kind of fibbed about where I found him. It was hereabouts. He wandered over here from his own territory, the ship took control of him. He was about to kill me—was spittin’ that venom at me and I got a splash on my arm. I got a scar here, let me tell you, a big one. Well I was in the debris field and he was gonna do me in. But then I put my hand on this …” He touched the artifact hung around his neck. “And I said, ‘Don’t kill me you big ol’ daddy longlegs!’ And he stopped right there. He heard me! Ever since, I’ve been developing our … what you call it … a rabbit, a rap it …”
“You mean rapport?” Zac said.
“That’s it. We got one of those, Bizzy and me. It seems to help to whistle at him. But see—he hears my thinking, kinda, through this alien doohickey here. It’s some kind of telepathic telephone thing, I figure.”
“How do you come by terms like UnderBodies and ShipGrowth? That’s not something that sounds like you.”
“Why, it comes from the ship. Sometimes, maybe through Bizzy—I hear it thinking!”
“Yeah? What’s it thinking now?”
“Oh I can’t hear it all the time. Just sometimes. I don’t understand most of it. It’s not in our talk. But after a while some of the meaning of the words, it kinda filters down to me—in my mind you know.”
“Berl—about that rapport of yours. Originally, the ship had control of Bizzy, right? So what happens if it takes over again?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, young fella, I got it all worked out. You see, you get a half klick from the ship, it don’t control Bizzy no more. Now—”
“Wait, hold on—we’re closer to the ship than that right now!”
“Well yeah, I s’pose we are, but you know, I got the artifact around my neck here. Long as it’s on me, it kinda runs interference for me, and Bizzy turns to me first. I reckon he thinks I am the ship, or some kinda part of it. If he seems like he’s faltering, well, I just touch the artifact here with my hand and I whistle to him and we do our rat-pour, and we connect again, see. Berl ’n’ Bizzy, Bizzy ’n’ Berl, right? So don’t worry your empty little head, boy.”
“That’s not very comforting, Berl. Seems to me like you could lose control of him. And he could fry us both with a spit of that bright blue tobacco juice of his.”
“It’s like I said, me and him, we’re tight now. It don’t matter he’s got alien tech in his head. But if he does waver … I’ll call him back! He’ll come right back to me, you wait and see. Him and me are old pals …”
Zac sighed. “You’d better be right. What else you know about the alien ship?”
“The monitor notices you more if you move. And … there’s one other thing I’ve been noticin’.”
“What’s that, Berl?”
“Don’t you see it? The ship is lighting up! It’s shining out more than it was. I’ve noticed it since I come here. It had a twinkle or two but really the ship used to look kinda dead except for the monitor, and the UnderBodies. That alien ship is coming alive!”
Late afternoon and Roland, Crannigan, Rosco, and Rans Veritas stood in a tense group at the entrance to a gorge leading up to the foot of the broken volcano.
“We’re not wasting any more time looking for that damn kid,” Crannigan growled. “We’re moving on. Face it, the skags had a nice meal and left us alone. So he was good for something.”
Roland almost punched Crannigan at that last remark. He surprised himself, feeling that strongly about it. He must’ve gotten too attached to the kid. Stupid to get attached to anyone on Pandora. Look what happened with McNee.
Roland kept himself in check. Rosco was on Crannigan’s team and Rosco was good in a fight. He was watching Roland closely, eyes narrowed. Crannigan was a deadly fighter himself, and he had that Eridian rifle in his hands. Roland’s shield wouldn’t stand up to it for more than one good pulse.
Roland had his own Eridian weapon, taken from the bandit cache—a Thunder Storm electric shotgun—but it was stowed in the outrunner as he didn’t like handling Eridian weapons too often. He suspected contact with Eridium of causing t
he mutation of ordinary miners into Psycho Bandits.
“Rans here tried to find the kid,” Rosco said. “You tried. Can’t be done. It’s too damn late, no matter what.”
Roland snorted. “Rans says he followed the skags that took the kid. I found drag marks, and Ran’s footprints—for a while, till he got to the glass plain. Didn’t find any skag tracks anywhere. And skags don’t range that far from their dens. No sign of ’em around here for two or three klicks at least.”
“What are you saying?” Rans demanded. “You’re saying I’m a liar?”
“Never doubted you were a liar,” Roland said calmly. “From the moment I met you. And you didn’t like that kid. He worried you, for some reason.”
“What you think I did, sell him to the bandits?” Rans said, grinning nastily. “You seen any bandits around here?”
“No. But … I’ve seen tunnel rats.” He watched Rans’s face as he said it. And there did seem to be a flicker of tension there. A sick feeling went through him. Had the shifty old hustler turned the boy over to tunnel rats?
If he did, the kid was probably dead. Which would give Roland yet another score to settle.
Roland groaned inwardly, annoyed with himself for getting soft. But he had to know what happened to Cal. That kid had counted on him …
On the other hand—the boy’s father might be in the area. The kid could have stumbled into him. He might be with him now—which meant he might be at the alien crash site. Looked like it was going to be necessary to cover both possibilities. And he did want to see that crash site. His interest had gotten ever more piqued.
“Tell you what I’m gonna do,” Roland said. “You go on ahead and I’ll catch up to you—maybe in a few hours. Follow the gorge up toward the volcano. I’ll leave the outrunner here—but I’m taking the Zodiac Turret with me. It won’t be of much use to you anyhow—it’s attuned to protect me and me only.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Crannigan said coldly.
“I’ll be there when it gets rough,” Roland said, giving Crannigan a significant look. “We’ve got a deal.”
“Okay, whatever,” Crannigan grunted. But he wasn’t pleased.
