Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel

by Charles E. Gannon

  “It’s Ooshwelo.”

  “Oh no,” he said and ran. Salsaliin and Sam both fell in behind him. He raced toward the huts where the few who’d stayed behind were sheltered. Had they not gotten all of the satrap’s forces? Had some circled around and attacked from behind? He didn’t have enough people to leave a rear guard and was kicking himself for not doing it anyway. If the J’Stull had a second force nearby…

  He reached the Atii’s tent and found no signs of damage. He slipped inside and found everyone was fine except Ooshwelo. Miizhaam was cradling the ancient woman’s head in her lap and humming. She looked up when he entered and spoke.

  “I think the excitement was too much for her,” Miizhaam said.

  “I yet live,” Ooshwelo spoke, her voice barely a whisper. Miizhaam caressed the ancient woman’s forehead. “Did you succeed?”

  “Yes,” Vat said. “Some of the fighters died, but the satrap’s forces are defeated.” So far as we know.

  “I grieve for the warriors but sing for the victory.” The words were full of the non-complying speech elements. Vat wished he had the recorder handy, then hated himself for the thought. “I wish to die at the Daaj,” she added, her voice surprisingly strong. “Will you take me there?”

  Salsaliin nodded.

  “Whatever you want,” Vat said.

  “Then hurry, I do not have much time left.”

  “I wish I could go,” Vat said.

  “Then come; you have earned it.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seventy

  R’Bak

  Miizhaam went out and arranged to have a whinnie brought with a large saddle usually used to move families. It was fitted with a platform in front of the rider where children could sit. Ooshwelo was tiny and frail; there would be more than enough room.

  It took longer than Vat thought it should, so he left Salsaliin with Ooshwelo and went to help. The villagers seemed indifferent to Ooshwelo’s condition. It was not the attitude he was expecting. He found Bafguur and explained what was happening.

  “There aren’t many Atii,” he said, then shrugged. “Maybe the sooner they die, the better.”

  “She wants to go to the Daaj,” Vat said. Bafguur made a face halfway between a frown and a sneer. “She wants to die there.”

  “Kejern,” Bafguur called. “Get some whinnies for this man.” He looked at Vat. “I do this for you.”

  With the help of the women, he got Ooshwelo bundled up and onto the whinnie. She was shivering though the evening was almost uncomfortably warm.

  “I’m coming along,” Salsaliin said.

  “What about Miizhaam?” Vat asked.

  “Just my granddaughter and you,” Ooshwelo whispered.

  Vat made a face. It would be more difficult with only one person to help. And there was still the risk of more enemies who might not have been swept up in the ambush, or part of a reserve force. As they prepared to depart, the village healer packed Vat’s bullet graze with the same stuff Artyom had received. Now Vat understood why the Russian had screamed bloody murder. It hurt. By the time she was done torturing him, the whinnies were ready, and the three left. Ooshwelo told him what direction to ride.

  “Southeast,” she whispered. “Look for a craggy hill.”

  Salsaliin rode alongside Vat. He kept a hand free to be sure Ooshwelo didn’t fall off. She was so still he couldn’t tell if she was alive. “Do you know how far?” he asked across the darkness to the shadow of his riding companion.

  “Not far,” Salsaliin said. “The Atii are never far from the Daaj.”

  He burned with the desire to question her about it. She shared the speech elements which had brought Vat out on this fateful journey, no doubt learned from her grandmother. But now, riding in near darkness with an old—no, ancient—woman near death’s door, he began to think Murphy was right. Chasing his wild hunch had been a waste of time.

  No. He shook his head. It wasn’t a waste of time. The enemy forces would have slaughtered the village and taken the women away as slaves or short-lived distractions.

  “Are you okay?” Salsaliin’s voice drifted to him from the darkness.

  “Fine,” he said. “Just…conflicted.”

  “I don’t know of an outsider ever being invited to the Daaj,” she said. He could see her looking at him, staring, and wondered what she was thinking.

  The whinnies had excellent night vision and with their ground-hugging gait, were smooth to ride. They didn’t jostle the saddle like a horse, not even when they ran. There was just a little more side-to-side motion at slow speeds.

  They climbed a slight rise, and he spotted a hill, not more than a big pile of rocks against the star-littered sky, backlit by the small rising moon. Vat immediately recognized it as the same hill they’d flown over on their way in.

  “Is that the Daaj?” he whispered to Ooshwelo. She didn’t reply, but he could feel her breathing, so they continued onward.

  Vat was afraid “not far” meant an all-night ride, but it turned out to only be a little over two hours before they encountered the house-sized boulders. Ooshwelo finally spoke, but he missed most of it and had to stop the whinnie so he could lean over and put his ear next to her mouth.

  “Look…for…the…black…rock.”

  “Black rock?” he asked. It was dark so he wasn’t sure how would he spot a black rock in the middle of the night. He asked her but she remained silent. He could barely feel her breathing.

  “What did she say?” Salsaliin asked.

  “Look for the black rock,” he said, straining his eyes against the gloom. The tiny moon was directly behind the hill now that they were at its foot. He thought frantically until he remembered he wasn’t from this planet. He had technology. Cursing to himself, he dug into his pack and retrieved the big flashlight stashed there. You didn’t think about using them in a combat zone. There was no faster way to get a permanent hair parting than by firing up a flashlight.

  “Oh!” Salsaliin cried and covered her eyes.

  “Sorry, I should have warned you. It’s called a flashlight.” He played the beam over the mound, taking a few seconds to adjust for the stark shadows it threw into the crags between the rocks. After moving the flashlight around for a minute, one of the rocks reflected like a mirror. It surprised him almost as much as the flashlight had Salsaliin.

  He got off the whinnie and walked to the rock. As he got closer, he understood why it was throwing the beam back; facing him was a massive piece of volcanic glass with a sheared, concave side. The rest of the rocks that made up the hill were sedimentary, like the majority of those in the region. Or so he’d been told, anyway. The nearest volcanoes were thousands of kilometers away.

  “I found it,” he told Ooshwelo. “It’s a big piece of black volcanic glass.”

  This time she only managed one word. “Behind.”

  Realizing she was near the end, Vat took her down from the saddle. She was as light as a feather, and all skin and bones. Very, very old skin and bones. He doubted she weighed 30 kilos.

  Salsaliin followed without comment. After a few steps, Vat almost tripped over a rock. “Take the flashlight and show the way?” he asked her.

  “Yes, of course,” Salsaliin said.

  Vat waited while Salsaliin leaned to peer around the far side of the rock. “There’s an entrance here!” she called excitedly. He went to examine it. There was a V-shaped archway where the obsidian rock leaned against a larger boulder; beyond it, a tunnel was clearly visible. More interesting was the unmistakable evidence of tool-worked stone steps.

  The entrance was large and there was plenty of room. He had Salsaliin play the light around the cavern. One side sloped down to some steps, the other led to a chamber. They went to the chamber—it was one of the satrap caches, a huge one. At least a dozen trucks were covered with tarps, and there were stacks of gear as well.

  “This is the Daaj?” he asked, confused. “This is a satrap cache.”

  “No,” Ooshwelo whispered.
“Below.”

  “What do we do?” Salsaliin asked.

  Vat looked around one last time. “We go down,” Vat said, gesturing for her to go first as he followed, carrying Ooshwelo.

  On the surface, it was around 28 degrees Celsius, as cool as he’d seen it at any time, down from the day’s high of 35, which chased everyone to shelter in whatever shade they could find. But only a couple of steps beyond the hidden entrance, the temperature began to drop. Salsaliin used the flashlight to light the way. They reached a bend, and Vat spotted cuts in the rock wall. A cool wind blew through the holes and out matching ones on the other side.

  “Why does the air smell wet?” Salsaliin asked.

  “It’s a moisture trap,” he said. “There’s an aquifer down here somewhere.” She looked back at him, confused. “An underground lake.”

  “There are no lakes this far south,” she said.

  “They are underground,” he said. “Murphy said they were likely here, but we didn’t have the tools to drill for water.”

  Down they went, passing through four more switchbacks, each with another moisture trap. It was ingeniously built. The multiple traps made sure very little water leaked out from the exit. He recalled seeing a boulder near the entrance. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it were the perfect size to seal the entrance for when the Searing came. No doubt the Kulsians would have thought it a great place to hide their equipment, too, but why hadn’t they found the Daaj? It was hard to believe nobody had gone down the steps after hiding their gear above.

  The tunnel finally leveled out, and they followed it for a short time. Parts of the passage looked natural; others were carved by tools. There was no sign of rock drills or explosives. This had all been excavated by hand with nothing more than picks or other small tools, swung by manpower. Or something else? Had R’Bak once been the home of a non-human species?

  He remembered reading a report of the strange healing plants and unusual animals. Someone had noted a lack of seemingly uniform evolutionary trends, though the same person noted nothing on Earth would evolve in a region burnt to a crisp every 88 years. So who was to say what such an environment might yield?

  They came to a dead end. A boulder was wedged into the tunnel, fitting its dimensions almost perfectly. Had there been a cave in? he wondered.

  “The roof must have fallen in,” Salsaliin said.

  “…push the black rock…” came Ooshwelo’s tiny whisper.

  Still carrying her in his arms, Vat moved to the boulder and leaned next to it. A tiny cool breeze brushed his cheek from around the edge of the rock. There was no way he could move this; it had to be at least ten tons. More, probably.

  “…push…” Ooshwelo repeated.

  He had Salsaliin shine the light around again. Like before, they found a piece of black volcanic glass in the wall. He pushed it, and the boulder moved.

  “Shit!” he gasped, backstepping just fast enough to avoid falling to the floor and sending his delicate charge flying. A slight whoosh of even cooler air passed him. It was no more than 17 or 18 degrees inside.

  “It’s a door!” Salsaliin said.

  Regaining his balance, Vat walked through the opening and examined the “door.” The boulder was just as massive on the inside and appeared perfectly balanced. He could move it with a fingertip. “Better close it,” he told Salsaliin, who nodded and gently pushed the boulder closed. It settled into its niche with barely a sound. How old is this?

  After traversing a short passageway, similar to what was on the other side of the door, it opened up. Salsaliin shined the light around…revealing a massive chamber. No, chamber wasn’t the right word. It was a cavern hundreds of meters across. The roof was covered in stalactites and was fifty or more meters above them. They were inside the hill. As she moved the light along the roof, it left a pattern of glowing phosphoresce behind.

  A frail whisper: “…shut off…the light…”

  “Do it,” Vat said.

  They were plunged into complete darkness, but after a few seconds, a glow appeared. It continued to grow until they could see each other again, then details in the distance. Finally, it was as bright as dusk, enough to read by if you strained your eyes. Somewhere, he heard the drip of water.

  “What is this light?” Salsaliin asked.

  The illumination had a faintly greenish-yellow tint. Not unpleasant, it reminded Vat of an old CRT computer monitor. “It’s bioluminescence,” he explained. “A fungus growing on the walls. The flashlight made it shut off.”

  “Welcome to the Daaj,” Ooshwelo said. “I am home.” She sounded better, as if arriving had given her a temporary burst of energy.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Take me to the Piik,” she said. “The hall.” Her almost skeletal hand emerged from the wrapping and pointed. He followed the direction indicated by the gnarled forefinger and, to his surprise, saw a village.

  Buildings. Underground. Built in orderly rows, made from the same stone as the hill above and around them. Ooshwelo’s finger pushed toward the largest building, long and wide but lower than most.

  “What is this place?” he asked as he walked, Salsaliin following behind them.

  “The Daaj is where we came from. Homes made long, long ago.”

  “Made by the first exodates?”

  “No,” she said, looking up at him and smiling. “Older. Before any of them.”

  He was about to ask another question, but they had reached the building. There were openings with no doors, and holes for windows as well. Inside, it was bare except for a large stone table. “On that,” she said, pointing again.

  Vat gently set her on the table. He removed his combat vest and bundled it to make her a pillow. “What now?”

  “Now I go to my rest,” she said. She reached and took his hand. “You were meant to find this place because you came to me at just the right time. Your sacrifice to save my tribe confirmed it for me.” She reached with her other hand and took Salsaliin’s. “You, my dear, are now Atii. Raise your child as one and use the Daaj to protect the people.”

  With the last of her strength, she put their hands together. There was a small amulet she’d passed to Salsaliin. It appeared to be carved from stone, rather like an uneven pyramid. Or maybe, a pile of rocks. She patted their hands gently and closed her eyes. Vat leaned close, but there was no breath. She was gone. Salsaliin began to cry.

  Vat left her to mourn her grandmother and went outside to explore. The buildings were all open designs, made to allow as much of the bioluminescent light in as possible. It appeared doors and windows had once held fabric to close them off, but it was hard to tell. Everything felt incredibly old.

  “How long?” he whispered. There were grooves worn into the walkways between the buildings. The only other times he’d seen things like this were the ancient Aztec ruins and places in Egypt. It took untold thousands of years to erode stone from foot traffic.

  “Before the exodates,” he said. “Before…” Could humans have come to R’Bak before the Ktor came here? He hadn’t read anything about that. He didn’t know what to think about such a possibility. “I’m just a damned failed arms dealer,” he said, looking up at the glowing roof high above. “What does it all mean?”

  He eventually returned to Salsaliin, who was wrapping her grandmother in a sheet he hadn’t known she carried. Part of their funeral rituals. There was a shovel in his kit, up on the surface. He guessed he needed to go get it. There was likely a burial ground down there somewhere. As well as a stash of some sort of foods.

  The Daaj was where some of the natives hid from the Searing. Unless he missed his guess, it would only grow slightly warmer down here, even at the height of the solar assault on R’Bak.

  “Salsaliin, how many of these are there?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It wasn’t my place to ask. I only knew it was somewhere around here, because the Atii never leave this area.”

  Vat surmised the area wou
ld circle around the Daaj, and there must be others. The language, of which little bits still survived, had come from the Daaj. Maybe it was all that was left of an ancient culture that settled, or was planted here, first.

  This was the pearl he’d been looking for. The underground city was large, big enough for hundreds, or maybe thousands. It was indeed a pearl of great price. He needed to get in touch with Murphy and tell him everything. Hopefully, with all this, he won’t have me blown out an airlock for taking off on my wild hunch.

  He blinked as something occurred to him. “Salsaliin, what did she mean by your child?”

  She looked up at him and smiled.

  “Oh, hell.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Spin One

  Well, Murphy temporized, Vat may be a huge pain in the ass, perpetually cruising on the edge of insubordination, but damn, he has a nose for the kind of intel we need. Yes, his reports were totally unprofessional from a military standpoint. He dipped toward breezy prose and no small amount of sideways snark, but his final report on the Sarmatchani, the “related” tribes, their customs, and best of all, their hidden refuges for use during the Searing, was a positive gold mine.

  Best of all, and something he included as an almost deleted footnote, was that there was a spiderweb tunnel network that connected almost all the subterranean shelters to which the indigs retreated. If Murphy could get a map of those, it would put the legendary Viet Cong complexes to shame. Some of the networks had reportedly linked as many as half a dozen small sites using over a dozen passages. But what Vat was describing linked almost one hundred subterranean towns with several thousand kilometers of improved tunnels across a region almost eight hundred kilometers east to west and about three hundred kilometers north to south. What that might mean from a strategic perspective—moving large masses of troops and materiel in complete secrecy and safety throughout the entire salient—left Murphy’s head spinning with possibilities.