He could not identify the type or manufacturer of the craft, but it was well equipped and turned out to be very fast. She had no problem with Union transponder codes as they approached Planet Wichita.
He had spoken very little with her, but now as they were about to land on an unimportant planet deep in Union territory, he left his cabin and went up to the flight deck. "I think it is about time you explain to me why we are approaching this world and perhaps tell me why you want to help me? If you are who you say you are, would you not be on Union side?"
She swiveled around in the chair she was sitting in and folded her gloved hands over her crossed legs. She had long blonde hair and her face was an old style bio-flex mask, clearly designed to be recognized as a mask. She said to him, "There is a shortcut we are going to take. It will save us a lot of time. You can either go with me or try to find your own way to the Cave of Things."
"I accepted your help because you know more about me than anyone should and because I have no means to cross that kind of distance. I just don't see the connection between this world and the Cave of Things. For now I am going along, but I am tired of being a pawn and I demand you explain yourself. I am not impressed by your name. I don't believe you are an Immortal. It's an office, a front filled by a clone or someone trained for that posting."
"It matters not who you believe I am or not. I know who you are, Son of Darkness. I know you have been on Narth Prime and I know what your plans are. I have kept an eye on you, ever since you left Narth Prime."
She turned back to the console and answered a hail from the local Port Control. After she had exchanged the necessary information and identified herself as a Union Citizen she received landing permission.
Larthop watched her and he started to wonder if the legends and rumors he heard about this elusive Terran Immortal weren't true after all. "So why did you watch me all this time? If you managed to do that for almost 190 of your years, then I must be fairly important to you. Why not shut me down or kill me? I heard the rumor that you started out to be an assassin on that blue planet of yours, long before the Earth monkeys ascended onto the galactic stage?"
"Ah, so you do believe Cherubim is real after all."
"I studied the dark arts like no other, for longer than anyone, and I have seen things no one is allowed to see. I have an open mind if nothing else."
"You are as arrogant and blind as a Kermac wizard. You think you are the only one who studied what you call the dark arts. I have studied with Egyptian priests and Tibetan monks 5000 years before you were born and I have not stopped studying and learning to this day, yet I do not claim to be the wisest or the most knowledgeable person in the universe. I am watching you because you have been on Narth Prime, and you have acted with a one-track mind ever since."
Her ship descended, guided by traffic control and other automatic systems into the atmosphere of Planet Wichita and approached Topeka port. The ship had a small bridge, but it was configured to the latest Terran-style bubble tech layout, meaning they both had an unobstructed view all around them. Even as they broke through the lowest cloud layer he could not see any city. There was a spaceport in a typical Union cloverleaf layout, with a set of terminal buildings in the middle. All around the port and as far as they could see, even from this high up, were millions of animals penned up in fenced square sections of land. Six Meteor-type VI freighters all painted the same yellow, red, white and blue color scheme of the mighty Enroe Corporation were sitting on the landing field they were approaching, with extended ramps and open freight hatches. Robots and workers were herding great numbers of these four-legged, horned beasts inside.
Cherubim's ship touched down on a yellow and black-striped area that immediately lowered them below the surface.
She got up and handed him a little black attachable PDD. "This makes you a NAVINT operative and will prevent many of the usual controls."
He had heard about the existence of those, the Kermac would have paid billions for one of these. All Union secret doors opened for one of these. His new and mysterious partner was proving to be quite valuable and he had no illusions that she was more dangerous than anyone he had ever dealt with before, but he would find a way to kill her after she was no longer needed. With this PDD and her ship, he would accomplish his quest faster and easier than he could have ever imagined.
Cherubim stepped through an auto-dresser and now wore a long black coat and knee-high boots with rugged all-terrain soles. Her face had changed to that of a middle-aged woman with chestnut-colored chin-length hair. This time there was no telling if this was a mask or her real face. "I suggest you do the same, in this world it is always very likely that you will step into piles of animal droppings."
He followed her example and the machine equipped him with boots, a hat, and a holster with the latest Union blaster weapon. "I have no illusions that you trust me, so I assume that SII TKU is for show and not loaded."
"That gun is fully functional and you might need it on our way to the cave. It is not without dangers."
He followed her as she left her ship and walked to a slide belt in that sub-surface hangar. If she trusted him with such a dangerous weapon, she must not be afraid of it, maybe the rumors about this woman were less than half of the truth.
The Control Officers at Customs simply waved both of them through without checking anything.
She led him through the entrance hall of the spaceport's main building and to a taxi flyer stand.
As they stepped through a strong forced-air curtain it felt to Larthop as if he had run into a wall. The stench was unbelievably intense and made him gag.
She had no such problems and he suspected she had some sort of filters in her nose.
He boarded one of the taxi flyers after she had climbed inside. The air inside was clean and free of any odor. "By the seven winged demons of Kathtrak, that was horrible!"
"The seven winged demons of Kathtrak are actually a lifeform with about as much intellect as a dog and have nothing demonic to them," she said that in a schoolmisstressy tone of voice, while the taxi flew above the herds of penned animals.
"The scriptures of Anntko the holy are over a million years old and ancient Saresii lore. Anntko the prophet lived before the Saresii ascended. Less than a handful of Saresii scholars even know about these scriptures and no one knows what Anntko really saw when he described his encounter with the winged Demons in the valley of Kathtrak. How would you know what they are?"
"Just take my word for it for now and if you survive all this and you finished your quest, maybe you’ll find time to study in seriousness, you will be surprised what you can learn with a little patience."
The Flyer had left the animals and pens behind and flew over rolling hills of green grass, towards a range of mountains in the distance.
The taxi was piloted by a human, not automated, and the man turned to look over his shoulder and face his passengers. "We are about to reach our famous Bone Yard Valley. If you look out to the right you’ll see the first skeletons."
Larthop tried to hide the confusion he felt. It was his role and his place to be the one who knew more than others and act mysterious. The grass-covered valley below, located between a ring of mountains, was indeed littered with the skeletons of large animals.
The flyer circled down and landed next to a collection of temporary and permanent buildings. They were nestled against a sheer rock wall. The flag of the Science Corps fluttered in the wind, attached to a white painted pole atop of the central building. He also noticed the heavily armed Marines patrolling the area who were watching the approaching taxi.
The taxi dropped them off before a barely-visible forcefield fence. Between two fence projector posts, that served as a gate to this research compound, stood two Marines accompanied by a fully-equipped Cerberus robot.
He had never seen one so close and he could not help but feel very uneasy. Those robots had a terrible reputation for being very intelligent, very aggressive and almost unstoppable.
This time they had to stop, and the Marines checked them and their credentials.
One of them, a Corporal, had his helmet's faceplate open and moved in his six-ton Quasimodo main battlesuit like he was born in it. The Corporal was human so it looked like his face was made of a collection of building blocks, square with almost perfectly rectangular jawlines. "This research facility is off-limits to visitors."
The woman said, "We need to get inside. I am authorized, and this man is with me. Disregard whatever you see on your scan when you check him. I take full responsibility."
Just then the robot raised all four of his weapon arms."Approaching individual on suspect watch list."
The Corporal, however, said, "Stand down Cherby and initiate protocol 9."
The robot actually powered down and the Corporal waved them through. "Hurry up, the bot is in maintenance cycle but not for long. Welcome to Wichita, Commandant."
She nodded to the Corporal and said, "You'd better run and follow me. It won't be good if you're in the bot's sensor range when he comes out of the cycle."
She was fast and he had trouble keeping up with her on a small, steep path.
Cherubim stopped at the front of a building that was set right against the rock wall and placed her hand on a sensor field. That opened a massive door and she ushered him inside. He tried to catch his breath. "What was that all about? I thought you are the famous Immortal Cherubim, shouldn’t those robots obey you?"
"They do obey me, but these are Union Marine units and you and the Church of Darkness are on several watch lists and this machine would have reported you to NELSON. I don't want certain people to know what I am doing. This is how I have always operated and I won't change now."
They had entered something like an airlock and only after the outer door had been completely closed did the inner one open, and he could look down a long, natural-looking cave corridor. Lumi Plates had been bolted to walls and ceiling and illuminated the place with bright light. The floor was freshly poured Duro-Crete. To the left was a large shipping container used as an office of sorts.
A woman in green overalls came down a short flight of metal steps. "I am Dr. Brenda Brown and I am in charge of this facility. Since you are here, I am sure you check out fine but you have not been announced, so I'd like to know who you are and what it is you want."
"We are here to use the Spatial Gate to Planet Place. I am with NAVINT and have a highly classified mission. Here are my credentials."
Larthop suddenly understood. There was some sort of transport connection between this planet and the world he had to visit.
The green-dressed science officer completed her inspection of the orders and pointed to four-wheeled contraptions to the side of the container. "There are the quad bikes. The cave ground gets a little rough about a mile down, we have not paved further than that. There is still a bat problem but they usually stay away now, especially if you use the quad bikes. If they attack, use your guns and call for help."
Cherubim thanked the woman and Dr. Brown added, "The Transition line is marked with a sign. Slow down your bikes, we've had a few accidents from folks running into the cave wall after the transition. Have a safe trip."
Cherubim mounted one of the wheeled things and said, "It's easy, you learn as you go."
"I never thought you could drive on a motorbike bridging a distance of 90 000 light years!" he said, shaking his head.
***
We had launched the emergency beacon with a pre-recorded message two days before. To make sure my friends would not lose hope, I kept them busy collecting specimens. We had the robots build us a basic freight flyer. With it we surveyed a greater area around the base. We had the P4 mounted on the flyer, just in case.
Har-Hi was piloting the craft and Mao manned the Paralysator. Elfi was sitting in one of the passenger seats, her eyes closed, trying to use her limited Psionics to scan for more of the snake beings. So far she could feel nothing.
Krabbel spotted it first and pointed it out to us.
There, about 25km away from our base, we found the almost completely overgrown wreck of an old Saran planet lander.
I knew I wasn't acting very environmentally friendly when I had Mao hose down the area around the wreck with Paralysator rays, just to be on the safe side.
The main hatch was open and vegetation had made it inside the hull of the 60m craft. The hull appeared undamaged as far as I could tell at first glance. The ship's landing gear had sunken into the soft ground and it was sitting at a steep angle surrounded by shallow water and vegetation. The power of the Paralysator was evident in all the animals, either paralyzed or dead, around the old Saran ship.
Mao kept watch with the P4 while Har-Hi, Krabbel and I approached the ship. I said, "If we don't make contact soon, I think we’ve found our way off this planet. We've robots and a very talented engineer."
My Dai friend pointed his blaster inside the dark opening of the access hatch. "Let's hope we don't have to fight Nul in that thing."
Krabbel scurried up the hull of the craft and said, "I think the Nul would be in for a surprise. I mean they’ve never dealt with an angry Neo Viking and his crazy crew."
"They did get a taste of it though, when we faced those Nul fighters," Har-Hi said and then turned. "Can't see anything moving or dangerous inside, but I am not sure if the Paralysator penetrates all the armor of that thing, so we better be careful."
The room behind was full of vegetation and we found partial skeletons of two Saresii, the rest were most likely carried away by animals.
My scanner showed a weak energy signature coming from the small craft's engineering section.
We completed the survey of the craft without any incidents. Not much of the vegetation had made it past the airtight doors of the airlock that led to the rest of the ship. We did find three more members of the Saran crew; all three mummified skeletons and all three had been murdered.
The engines were undamaged, not so the engineering section. Someone had smashed and burned most of the controls. There was a little energy left in the emergency batteries, but not enough to even operate the ship's Computronic.
We closed the hatch and returned to the camp. I was thinking about ways to get the ship back to the camp and repair it.
Almost two weeks had passed now, since we had arrived on Quagmire Bog and we could neither reach the probe we had launched nor did anyone try to contact us.
During our daily meeting I said, "It seems no one heard our beacon. So we’ll complete the base construction and add the facilities to strip that Saran planet lander and make it a working ship. We will also keep surveying this world. We still need to find out if there are more of those snakes."
We started a concentric search pattern and launched two more mapping satellites. So far we did not find any signs of the snake beings, but the satellite images revealed several completely overgrown ruin sites, consistent with the temple we had found.
The day ended without anything happening. The construction of the base was progressing steadily and the robots had finished with the foundation and had poured a solid floor inside the walled circle on which they now erected the main building of the new base. They were almost done with the first storey; the machines had to walk further now, to gather materials for the nanite factory, and doing so created a nice and wide, open area. Nothing could approach us without being seen.
I was confident in our security arrangements and did not think the snakes could do us any harm without us seeing them first. In a relaxed mood, and near the midnight hour, I climbed up to our roof post to relieve Hans from his watch.
I saw his hulking shadow in the darkness behind the P4 Paralysator and said, "Anything moving out there?"
Hans did not answer, but he moved and turned towards me. My eyes had adapted to the darkness and I noticed his bald head almost too late. At first I was not thinking anything about it, but then I realized that he did not wear the pink wig that was shielding him from the Psionic suggest
ions of the snake beings.
Hans howled words in his native language and swiveled the P4 around. In the faint light of a few stars, I now saw one of the snakes not far from him behind on the roof.
There was no way I could evade the invisible cone-shaped ray of the weapon, or reach Hans in time to somehow prevent him from firing. It was only because he was fighting the influence and did not react as fast as he normally could that I was still there, at this distance the P4 would be deadly if it were set to maximum output.
Hans growled and I understood him now. "It's time to die, Verfluchter Wikinger!"
Chapter 2: Psionic Snakes
Acting on instinct, I threw the knife I always carried under the shirt on my back; when it came to reacting fast my reflexes instinctively went for knives and blades before I thought of using my guns. The knife flew true, I had not aimed at Hans, and the blade would not do much to him, besides, I didn't want to hurt my friend. The blade struck the snake being in the throat right underneath its pointed maw.
At the same time, I felt as if I was doused with boiling water. Hans had fired the Paralysator!
I didn't lose consciousness, but I couldn't feel anything along the right side of my body. Hans must have swung the projection cone out of the way at the very last moment and only grazed me. Still, the effect was painful and my right leg no longer carried the weight of my body. I fell.
Hans held his hands to the sides of his head and kept screaming.
From my awkward position I saw Wetmouth coming onto the roof. Hans grabbed the TKU that was leaning against the power unit of the Paralysator, with the intent to shoot the Sojonit.
Wetmouth would stand no chance against that powerful weapon, and I was there seeing it all, unable to do anything about it. The only weapon I had that could stop Hans was my blaster, and it was holstered to my right side. I did manage to pull it with my left hand, but I knew I would be to slow to prevent the Saturnian giant from firing.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 41
