“Just get the water, will you?” Mortas hissed.
The scout turned his head long enough to give that ghostly smile again, just before taking the pole and sliding the plastic container toward the water. He extended it to almost its entire length before gently easing it into the flow. It filled quickly, and he had difficulty lifting the weight as he retracted it. The laden bucket scraped against the stones and then it was in his hands. The short man rolled over into a sitting position, holding the precious container like a baby.
All four of them were now staring at it, gummed tongues playing across pasty lips. Cranther looked up, and for the first time Mortas saw indecision in his eyes.
“Remember: Just because this place is a Hab doesn’t mean all the water’s drinkable. With no colonies here, maybe none of it is.”
“It has to be.” Croaked Gorman. “The bird drank it.”
“Bird comes from here. We don’t.”
“So what do we do? Stare at it?” Mortas could feel his throat constricting, begging for the liquid.
“Somebody has to try it.”
Shuffling forward, Gorman took the container by the sides and raised it to his lips, the pole still attached. One small sip. He stopped, licking his lips and blinking quickly as if trying to identify the taste. Then another one, longer. He slowly sat back, still clutching the bucket and looking thoughtful.
“It’s definitely water. Not sure if anything else is in it.” He drank again, long, slow swallows.
“So now what?” Mortas was finding it hard not to reach for the receptacle.
“By the book, we should wait a full day and see how he’s doing once it’s gone all the way through his system.” Trent spoke as if in a trance, not accepting her own words. “But even then if there’s a bug in this stuff we might not know it.”
“And we’ve got to get moving again.” Cranther. “We’ve got to get back up on the high ground if there’s any chance of finding whoever left that ration bag.”
Mortas could feel the three pairs of eyes boring into him even though he was still fixated on the bucket. So many decisions. Couldn’t one of them be easy?
“Everybody drink some. After that we fill up the hoses and get moving.”
Cranther nodded and took the bucket from Gorman, raising it to his mouth. His eyes shut as he drank, ecstatic, but he left enough for both Mortas and Trent. When Trent had emptied the vessel she fed the pole over Cranther’s shoulder where he once again lay in the brush. He started extending it again, and was about to ease it into the water, when he whispered, “Everybody keep your eyes open.”
It was as if he’d recited a summoning spell. One moment Mortas was greedily watching the container dipping toward the surface, and then everything was motion and terror and noise. The rippling water bursting upward like a geyser, its center a black-green tube the width of a man’s thigh. Open jaws and teeth, snapping madly. Hurtling toward the group even as Mortas dived backward, panic-stricken, a choked cry of insane prehistoric fear springing from within.
Seeing, even in his panic, the jaws smashing down on the plastic bucket. The pole bending as Cranther tried to ward off the beast, hollering, “Hit it! Hit it! Hit it!” before desperately scuttling backward. Gorman grabbing the short man by the collar, yanking him away, into the brush.
Trent kneeling, snatching up the forgotten stones and heaving them at the beast with incredible speed. Gorman bouncing off of her when his hand slipped from Cranther’s shirt and he fell over. Cranther flipping onto his stomach and crashing through the brush in a frenzied crawl. Trent throwing one of the rocks perfectly, smacking the awful maw with a wet, meaty thud. Mortas grabbing her arm as he scrambled past, his eyes darting back over his shoulder. The nightmare thing dropping onto the mashed grass where Cranther had been, already wriggling in retreat toward its element. In a moment it was gone, but that didn’t stop him from pushing Trent in front of him, running hard after the other two.
They might have fled for quite a distance had Cranther not managed to get his feet tangled up in the pipe that he miraculously still carried. It sent him sprawling in the grass, and Gorman was so close behind that he went down too. Trent almost managed to stop before running them over, but Mortas barreled into her so hard that they both ended up in the pile.
All tangled arms, legs, and weeds, Mortas found himself face to face with Cranther. The scout’s eyes were huge and his mouth opened and shut more than once before he finally got the words out.
“What . . . was . . . that?”
“They’re coming, Corporal.”
Gorman gave the warning in a flat, low voice. Cranther was prone on a narrow rock that jutted out over the stream, the pole down in the water. They’d lost the bucket in the first attack, but the current was strong enough to fill the water tubes if they were dangled in just the right way. Filling, they swished back and forth and took on an eerie resemblance to the serpents that had tried to kill them.
And that was what they were: Serpents. The riverine monsters varied in size, the largest ones twenty feet long and as big around as a man’s waist. After composing themselves from their earlier flight, the group had traveled upstream in search of a safer spot to try and get more water. They’d been left alone briefly, but disturbing the current with the hoses had alerted the serpents to their presence no matter how many times they’d moved. Although these predators weren’t amphibian, they hadn’t hesitated to launch themselves up onto the bank a short distance once they’d noticed that a possible meal was near.
Perhaps the worst part was seeing just how many of them had gathered over time. The presence of food and the thrashing of the earliest arrivals had drawn quite a crowd. The humans had been driven from two different spots before finding the overhanging rock, and even though they knew it wasn’t out of range for the leaping predators, it at least provided some protection.
The dark water began to ripple unnaturally, lines crossing the current and revealing the approach of the underwater hunters. Mortas was holding Cranther’s boots in both hands, primed to pull him back, and Trent stood ready with more rocks. She’d proved a dead shot with the projectiles and seemed to derive great pleasure from striking the monsters even after Cranther had moved to safety.
The scout pulled the pole back up, water draining off the teardrop-shaped water tube at its end. He was just about to start sliding backward when he stopped as if stuck. Mortas shifted his hands to the man’s ankles, getting ready to pull, when Cranther spoke.
“I don’t believe this.”
He quickly crawled backward, dragging the pipe and the tube with him while Mortas moved out of the way. As if on cue, the approaching runnels in the water either veered off or disappeared entirely as the serpents dispersed. Mortas watched with revulsion, eager to be away from the stream now that most of the water carriers were filled. Even so, he remembered Cranther’s odd statement and turned to where the scout sat in the grass. The Spartacan wore an expression mixing chagrin, exhaustion, and wonder.
“What is it? What did you see?”
Cranther pointed with his thumb toward a spot upstream, blocked by the tall weeds.
“There’s a bridge not five hundred yards that way.”
“A bridge?” Mortas’s voice cracked, but he hardly noticed. He stood up eagerly, trying to see over the brush. “You mean, a man-made bridge?”
“Sort of.” Cranther looked up, a critical expression appearing on his face. “And get down, sir. I’ve seen this kind before. It’s temporary. New colony stuff, until the permanent bridge can get built.” He blew out a long exhalation, his eyes on the ground.
“And it belongs to the Sims.”
They circled around, using the brush for cover as they worked their way up to the bridge. A knob of high ground overlooked the structure from a hundred yards away, and they crawled forward on their stomachs to view it.
It didn
’t look temporary. Concrete supports had been built into the bank on either side, squared-off rock over which the metal span was laid. Honeycombed plates made up the bridge floor, and a railing stood up on either side at what was probably waist height. It wasn’t long, and looked only wide enough for one-way traffic, but it was impossible to know about that because it was absolutely empty.
They were losing the light by then, but Cranther insisted that they remain motionless, observing the bridge and the far bank. The ground on the opposite side rose into yet another ridge, and it was covered in the same yellowish grass as the knob where they lay.
“See that?” Cranther spoke so softly that Mortas could barely hear him even though the scout’s lips were almost in his ear. “They graded the other side. It’s not exactly a road, but it means the settlement is on that side of the water.”
Mortas found the whole scene simply incredible. First the ration bag, then finding the stream, then being menaced by enormous water snakes, and now finding proof positive of an alien presence was almost too much for him. He’d had his fill of water and was feeling more composed as a result, but the onslaught of unexpected developments still left him baffled.
“If there is a colony here, how come we haven’t seen any shuttles in the air? Or even ground vehicles?”
“No idea. None of this is making any sense. This planet was uninhabited as of my last briefing. And I’m still trying to figure out how a human ration bag connects to a Sim emplacement.” He raised a finger. “Look. Another bird. It’s like they’re coming back after running away from something.”
“But what?” Mortas pondered his own question. The absence of enemy aircraft, vehicles, and even personnel seemed to offer an answer. “You think maybe they had an accident? Blew up the whole colony? Chemicals, maybe?”
“Could be. Thought I smelled smoke the first night, but just figured it was natural. Brush fire, something like that. But it still doesn’t explain how this place suddenly has a Sim colony.”
“Why does this mean it’s a colony?” Gorman pointed at the bridge below. “Maybe it’s just a survey party, like you thought when we were looking for whoever owned that bag.”
“That kind of bridge means a settlement, or at the very least a battalion-sized force. No survey team would be cruising around plunking those down. But hey, look on the bright side: That big a bunch of Sims, they gotta have a ship we could steal.” He looked up at the darkening sky. “We need to find them. So let’s wait until full dark and then use their bridge to cross without getting eaten.”
“He sure seems confident that we can steal a ship from the Sims.” Gorman looked over his shoulder at Cranther, who was asleep behind them. The scout had worked his way into a Z-shaped crack in the ground and pulled weeds over him so that he was practically invisible.
Mortas lay on his stomach next to the mapmaker, watching the empty bridge as the stars slowly brightened overhead. Trent had slid back from the edge a short time earlier, and Mortas had assumed she was going to catch some shut-eye in imitation of Cranther. He silently congratulated himself on having decided to make them pull guard shifts the night before, now that an enemy presence had revealed itself.
“Remember we haven’t seen a live human or a live Sim yet. It sure would make things easier if they were all dead.” A disturbing thought: the Sim colony that Cranther believed was somewhere on the other side of the creek might have suffered an accident so severe that they’d packed up everything and gone home. It would be a disappointing explanation for why they hadn’t seen any of the aerial traffic normally associated with a Sim emplacement, and he pushed it away. “Right about now I’m up for anything that brings us closer to a meal.”
“Me too. Trying not to think about it, but it’s hard not to.”
“Hey Lieutenant.” Trent’s voice came from just behind them, low. “Take a look at my foot.”
He raised himself on an elbow to see that Trent was sitting in a small depression with one boot off. The bare foot was crossed over the opposite leg, and so Mortas crawled over. The stars were bright enough for him to make out a lump on Trent’s heel, and when he poked it she gave off a hiss of pain.
“Looks like I get blisters just like everybody else.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Nothing we can do for it.”
“Keep walking on it and it’ll toughen up.” Cranther’s voice rose from the crack in the dirt. The corporal slowly sat up, adjusting the skull cap. “Human bodies can adapt to a lot of things. Walk far enough and your foot will build callus like a boot heel. Go without food long enough and your stomach will shrink. You can get used to just about anything that doesn’t kill you outright.”
Mortas briefly considered arguing that last point, but decided against it. They needed to get moving. Movement meant getting closer to the chance of food. And a ship. Or maybe a radio of some kind that they could use to call for help.
“Lieutenant!” Gorman’s voice shot at him in an urgent whisper. “Something’s coming on the other side of the river.”
The three of them lunged toward the mapmaker, landing in a tight pile facing the bridge. On the opposite bank, with a low rumble that became only slightly louder as it approached, a pair of muted lights bumped along the track. The vehicle was almost at the bridge when Mortas was finally able to make out its general shape. Some kind of mover, a cargo hauler perhaps, with two seats in front and a covered back.
It stopped with a sigh, and one door at its front opened. The starlight was sufficient to identify him as a tall individual, two arms and two legs and carrying some sort of weapon. He appeared human in every aspect as he walked to the rear of the mover and opened a large hatch. Mortas had seen plenty of footage of captured Sims, and had heard their gibbering language on tape, but even so he was unprepared when the thing spoke.
Sim language had so far evaded the efforts of mankind’s finest linguists and supercomputers, and he now knew why. The tall Sim uttered a stream of chirps and peeps loud enough for the group on the hill to hear clearly. The syllables seemed to bounce off of each other, and even though he understood not one of them, Mortas was almost certain the speaker was annoyed.
The chirping brought two more Sims out of the vehicle, both of them dropping to the dirt carrying weapons. Mortas didn’t recognize the devices, having expected to see the long, skeletal rifle common to Sim infantry. These were stubby, short-barreled things that didn’t look like they had much range to them, and the two Sims who’d emerged from the mover both hugged them to their chests as if for warmth.
All three of them were clad in some sort of uniform that appeared gray in the darkness. The speaker was bareheaded, but the other two wore helmets and combat harnesses. The helmets were also foreign to Mortas, flimsy-looking headgear that hugged the skull and covered the ears. The speaker gestured with an arm as he turned and walked onto the bridge, and the other two followed.
“Son of a bitch, he’s posting a guard.” Cranther whispered right into Mortas’s ear. For the first time the lieutenant was aware that the four of them were so close together that they were basically a pile.
He turned, cupping a hand over the scout’s ear and bringing his mouth close. “What are they? Never seen outfits or guns like those.”
“Probably colony militia. Those guns are a generation behind what the mainline troops are slinging these days. They’re called Maulers.”
A remembered slideshow from training, enemy weapons they might see on the battlefield. A trainer referring to one picture of a squat, ugly thing that fired a burst of low-velocity pellets that shattered internal organs so badly that human troops referred to it as the Mauler.
Mortas looked back down just in time to see the first Sim start back toward the vehicle. The two helmeted enemy were left standing in the center of the bridge, looking abandoned. That soon turned out to be the case, as the mover hummed into life and turned around laborio
usly on the narrow track before heading back the way it came.
“Good.” Cranther brought a finger up in front of Mortas’s eyes, pointing downstream after the vehicle. “Colony’s got to be that way.”
The lieutenant looked at the two guards, who still stood there uncertainly. It was madness to have posted them in the center of the span, or on it at all, if they were expecting trouble. There was plenty of cover and good vantage points on both sides of the stream from which they could have covered the bridge with fire. One more item on a growing list of things that didn’t make sense.
“So what do we do?”
“Gotta get across the water, which means we use the bridge. We got lucky; these two haven’t got a clue about what they’re doing. Shouldn’t be a problem for us.”
“You mean kill them?”
“No choice. We need to be across and up on that high ground before daylight if we want to see where this colony is.”
“Won’t that bring the rest down on us?”
“They must know about the serpents same as we do. We leave one of those helmets on the bridge, toss the bodies over, let their bosses decide it was an accident. One of the guards sat on the rail, tipped over, the other reached for him and they both went in the drink.”
“But how do we approach them? They’re right in the middle of the bridge.”
It was as if the guards had heard his question. A burst of angry chirping carried to them through the darkness, and he looked down to see one of the Sims pointing a finger at the other. Standing close up, accusatorial. So very human-like. The other one looked away, but not in fear; Mortas tried hard to make sense of it.
“They’re arguing.” Trent’s breath was hot against his neck. “One of them is hardcore and the other one doesn’t care at all.”
Glory Main Page 6
