“I’m all right,” he said. “The... the thing... it was in my mind.”
“Can you stand?” she asked, concentrating on the essential.
“What was in your mind?” Duna demanded. “What did it tell you?”
“Later,” Shasti snapped.
“Yes, later.” Fenaday struggled to his feet. The thing had struck him harder blows than he had ever felt in any tournament or fight. He felt bruised to the bone.
Gunnar and the trouble team burst through the door, followed by Mmok, Rigg, two ASATs and the HCR Cobalt. Fenaday realized the fight had taken only seconds. His connection to the thing made it seem longer.
“It’s all right,” he said as their guns searched everywhere for targets. Mmok, Rigg and the HCR covered Shasti and him. Connery and Gunnar targeted the Confed agents. Li eyed Telisan.
“Put your weapons up,” Fenaday ordered. “Now, God Damn it.”
Fenaday flicked on his mike. Karass’ and Fury’s voices immediately spilled out, calling for instructions. He schooled his voice to calm. “This is Command One. Clear the net. All personnel fall back into defensive perimeter on the shuttles.”
In the background, Fenaday heard Shasti and Telisan explaining the nature of their attacker to the others. He saw disbelieving looks, even as Duna and Mourner confirmed it.
“Rask,” called Fenaday, “acknowledge.”
“Here Captain,” Rask replied.
“Keep the area from the house to the shuttles secure. Fire on anything that moves. Mmok will back you up.” He looked at the cyborg, who nodded and disappeared. Mourner and Duna were running their instruments over the mass on the floor, taking samples.
“Drop those,” he said, “something knows we are here. We’re going to break contact with this area and disappear. It might be able to follow a piece of what was itself.” They looked as if they might argue until they caught the glare in his eyes.
“Take every record and recording you can,” he continued. “Duna, download that computer disk. We’re getting out of here. Gunnar, cover that mess on the floor; if it stirs, blast it. Mourner, get back to the ship. Li, take her there.”
“Mother of God,” Connery said, “it’s like the Shellycoats of my grandfather’s old stories.”
“What?” Fenaday asked. Connery, a former Shamrock employee, was a native of New Eire. What he said triggered a memory in Fenaday as well.
“Ah, you’ve forgotten that one,” Connery said, “of the Sidhe; there were Drows, Pookas, Banshees and Shellycoats. Shellycoats were spirits, manifesting as creatures of rock, shell and wood. Anything you might find in a stream.”
“We have such legends too,” called Duna, from the computer.
“Shellycoats,” Fenaday repeated, remembering the legend. Enshar’s nemesis now had a name. “Are you through, Duna?”
The Enshari nodded, picking up his case.
“Let’s get out of here,” Fenaday said. They left the room with Shasti and Connery bringing up the rear, racing down undersized stairs and out the front door.
The sky above them darkened as the wind began to strengthen. Telisan and Fenaday exchanged worried looks. “This is more than coincidence,” Telisan said.
“Remember the port,” Shasti called over the gusts, “the blast damage. Can the thing call down storms?”
“God knows,” Fenaday said, as they neared the shuttles. “Let’s think about it after we’re airborne.”
They raced aboard Pooka as the first raindrops began to pelt them. The other shuttles had already sealed their hatches. Fenaday hurried up to the control deck. “Take her up,” he ordered Fury, “head out to sea. I want to find a nice, uninhabited island at least two hundred kilometers from here.”
Telisan reached past him to flick on a screen. As the shuttles drove up and sped away, they could see lightning begin to flash around the home of Belwin Duna.
Chapter Eleven
The shuttles climbed to five thousand meters over the weather, heading out to sea at four hundred knots. On the flight deck, Fenaday tried to calm his speeding heart. Mourner came up and made him sit while she used a regenerator to close the cuts on his face and reduce the worst of the bruising. Fury cast him sidelong glances as they climbed for altitude.
“Bernard,” Fenaday said, turning to the radio operator after Mourner finished, “call Sidhe. Find out how widespread the storms over both Gigor and Duna’s home are.”
“Aye, sir.” She called up to the ship. The answer came back in seconds. “Both storms were small, sudden and very local. The one at Gigor dissipated shortly after we left. The one at Duna’s continues.”
“I see,” he said grimly. “Call Mr. Duna up to the cockpit.”
The old Enshari appeared, quickly flanked by a worried Telisan.
“Your planet seems to be haunted, Mr. Duna,” Fenaday began. “Storms and now apparitions seem to be plaguing us. What do you make of these phenomena?”
“I truly do not know, Captain,” Duna answered. “Enshar’s atmosphere, stirred by its powerful sun, is well known for storms. This is especially true in the spring, and it is now mid-spring on Enshar. Our violent weather is one of the reasons life on Enshar developed with a predilection for burrowing.”
“There was that burning electrical smell,” Shasti said, “just before the attack.” As usual she managed to arrive unobserved.
How the hell does someone so big manage to do that? Fenaday wondered.
“It could well have been the computer,” Telisan countered, “damaged as it was.”
“Could have,” she said, clearly unconvinced.
“That’s all,” said Fenaday, eyeing Duna and Telisan.
After they left the deck, Shasti turned to him, keeping her head near his so their voices wouldn’t carry. “Do we head up to the ship?”
He shook his head. “Without a proper launch window the shuttles could exhaust weeks’ worth of atmospheric operation and still not reach a stable orbit. There’s little chance of arranging an orbital window to Sidhe inside of twenty-four hours. Shuttles and ship have changed their positions relative to each other too much. We need a place to hole up till you and I decide what to do next.”
“And them?” she said with a slight inclination of her head in the direction Duna and Telisan had gone.
“They know, or suspect, more than they’re telling,” he replied. “Watch them.”
She nodded and slipped away, leaving the small flight cabin to Fenaday, Bernard and Fury.
“Updated forecast from the ship,” Bernard said. “Big storm front ahead, looks natural though. Meteorology on Sidhe says it has been there for days.”
“We’ll have to chance it,” Fenaday decided. “Even with our reactor drives we can’t keep flying forever. Find me a nice island, something with no habitations on it.”
Fury checked the shuttle’s computer and triangulated with the frigate. She pointed to the map display on her flight panel. “An island suitable for our purposes is about two hour’s flight at cruising speed. It will get us down and in cover by nightfall.”
“Shape course for the island,” he ordered. “Bernard, alert the other shuttles.”
After two hours of flying over the featureless ocean, Fury pointed over the shuttle’s blunt nose. “Land ho.”
Fenaday looked out to see a large island, divided by low hills and windswept on the deep ocean side. After circling the area, Fenaday decided on a clearing on the lee side. A small forest offered cover there, though the trees were short and scrubby compared to those by Duna’s home.
The shuttles landed in their usual defensive triangle. This time there was less of a casual air as the troops piled out, accompanied by the robots. Gray clouds heavy with rain scudded over their landing site. Shasti and Fenaday stepped out as the shuttle ramps went down onto stony soil. The smell of ocean greeted them, along with a cool breeze.
“Looks like New Eire, or pictures I’ve seen of Connemara,” Fenaday said.
“Be a bitch to dig in with
all this rock,” Shasti said, looking around the landing sight.
He glanced up at Shasti, as the wind stirred her tied-back hair. She so rarely sees the beauty, he thought. I wonder why? What sort of life did she lead before I knew her?
Shasti flicked her mike switch. “Rigg, Mmok, Rask,” she said. “We’re going to fortify the encampment tonight. I want barrier wire strung, floodlights placed, directional claymore mines and the crab robot guns sited.
“Mmok, get your utility robots to dig firing slits and foxholes. Human guards will accompany HCRs on regular patrols.”
“Acknowledged,” Rigg said.
“Yeah,” came Mmok’s raspy voice. “I’m going to send Airbot to scout the rest of the island before the storm. It’s an experimental model with a limited charge and requires a lot of my attention, so I’ll have to ground it at night.”
“Agreed,” Shasti said.
On their own the crew began to gather wood for a series of cheery blazes using the cargo robots and their cutters to fell trees. The clearing teams opened up fire-lanes. For those who had not seen the Shellycoat, the evening acquired something of a holiday air, despite the tense precautions.
Shasti and Fenaday walked the perimeter, checking the defenses.
“What’s the plan?” she asked when they were out of earshot of the others.
“Simple,” he replied. “Break contact with the enemy, bunker up and regroup. We need time to assess what we’ve found, or what’s found us. I’m going to call a war council at sunset. I need to find out where the diverse parts of my ‘command’ stand.”
“I’ll make preparations,” she said.
He smiled. “I count on it.”
*****
All the factions gathered on the open rear ramp of the Pooka just after sunset. The shuttles’ lights on their lowest setting and a nearby campfire provided soft illumination though there were still banners of light from the sunset on the clouds above them. Shasti quietly arranged to have her trouble squad nearby. Fenaday knew the others would take similar precautions. There was no way of telling how much of what they thought secret reached Mmok’s ears through his web of robots and electronics.
Rigg showed up with Rask. Mmok brought Magenta, who wore one of the local white flowers in her polymer hair. Fury, Karass and Nusam, the shuttle pilots, followed them over. Johan Gunnar poured coffee all around before retiring to the side of the shuttle to watch. The crowd of people stood in a semi-circle facing the shuttle, looking at either Fenaday or Duna. Shasti perched on a shuttle engine, a carbine resting on her thighs. Telisan sat near the fire and stared into it.
Without preamble, Fenaday launched the question. “Mr. Duna, today we got a small glimpse of what happened here nearly three years ago. It wasn’t pretty. I suspect you know more about this apparition than you’ve told us.”
The group stirred. Shasti quelled it with a cold stare. It always amazed Fenaday how her beautiful face could generate so much menace without a trace of expression on it. It felt like having a loaded weapon track over you.
Duna looked steadily at him. “Captain,” he said, equally formal, “if I told you an army from the Atlantis of Earth’s legends had overwhelmed my people, would you not think me mad? In truth, did you not think I was mad when we first met? I had suspicions of what might have occurred. These suspicions made me doubt my own sanity. The truth is—I feared to confide my thoughts to your government or anyone else. It would have given them the edge they needed to deny my quest and destroy the last hope of my people.”
“Good counterattack,” Fenaday said coldly. “However, we are here now and I want to know what you know—all of it—and I want it now. What attacked us at your home?”
“A thing indeed,” Duna responded, stepping up onto a broad flat rock as if it were a podium. “A creature, if creature it is, from the stories used to frighten naughty children. It is, well, the word won’t translate into your language. An analogy would be to the demons and spirits of Earth mythology. They are creatures of air, taking their physical form from whatever lies around them.”
“That thing that attacked us,” Shasti said, “was real.”
“Let me begin at the beginning,” Duna said. He seemed to draw comfort from sliding into a scholarly role. “We Enshari are an old race, compared to most others. We are very long-lived. Our history is so lengthy it can literally be the study of a lifetime. There are seven thousand years or so of well-recorded history in Earth’s China. Is that not so, Mr. Li?”
Li, looking surprised at being addressed, nodded from the shadows where he and the other trouble team members waited. “That’s what Mom used to say.”
“The cave drawings of your ancestors are about fifty thousand years old, Captain,” Duna continued. “Our recorded history dates back a hundred ninety thousand years and our prehistory goes back further still.
“My specialty is the study of that pre-history. What we call the ‘Unearthing’. It was the time we left burrows and caves and began to build towns and cities. We developed science at an astonishing rate compared to the other species of the Confederacy, and there are schools that contend we did not make that leap by ourselves, that we were helped by a beneficent alien race. I am one of those partisans.
“At the time of the ‘Helpers,’ as we call them, my people were primitive; little better than savages. The highest society was the kingdom of Barjan. It was pre-technic but had developed some science and writing.
“The most ancient records we have, which are themselves copies many thousands of years removed from the originals, and hence less reliable, tell of a terrible war of gods and demons fought on Enshar. Much of our race perished at the hands of such demons, or in the storms they raised.
“Then came the others, the Helpers. They destroyed or chained the demons and storm monsters, seizing their leader. Legend has it that the chief among the storm gods, for whom we have no name, was chained in the depths of the Barjan Mountains. What we now call the Barjan Deep.”
“That’s the name I heard your friend Creda say,” Fenaday interrupted.
“Just so,” Duna agreed. “The story is that the Chief Demon was one of the Helpers turned to evil; or perhaps something created by them. The Helpers could not, or would not, destroy it. They pursued the demon from a distant land, in long running battles. Legend says that they did not intend for Barjan to become a battleground and they sorrowed for it. In penance, the Helpers taught the Enshari science and technology, turning our face outward to the stars. Then they left. Within a few hundred years, we broke out into space.
“No record survives of what the Helpers actually looked like. Apparently, they manifested themselves as giant Enshari, though we doubt this was their real appearance.”
Silence fell, broken only by the sounds of sea. Camp lanterns and the lights of the shuttles themselves began supplanting twilight as the sun disappeared.
“You believe this tale?” Gunnar laughed.
Fenaday glared at him and started to speak.
Shasti preceded him. “Quiet, Johan,” she said softly. The big man subsided.
“No,” Duna replied politely, “not in the literal sense. It is one of the creation myths of my people and not an uncommon one among the seven races. We think of it as a tale for children, or a fable, like your Noah’s Ark.
“Many of my colleagues thought me a fool for studying it. They claimed the leap to the stars is simply an example of Enshari superiority. The tales were mere monster stories, perhaps like those you cited, Mr. Connery. What did you call the thing?”
Connery looked back at the Enshari. “The one most like your monster is a Shellycoat. It’s a Sidhe, an Elf, like the ones all our ships are named for. The Pooka was a horse you rode to your death, the Banshee’s wail foretold doom, and the Shellycoat would form out of anything near a stream bed.”
“Very similar,” Duna said. “Perhaps we will use that for a translation and call them Shellycoats.”
“I remember the stories,” Fenaday add
ed, “though the Shellycoats from those legends were more mischievous then deadly. They were also called Bogles. I thought it was a Scottish legend.”
“I’m Scots on my mother’s side,” Connery confessed.
“We won’t hold that against you,” Fenaday said, drawing a quick nervous laugh.
“Whatever we call them,” Fenaday said, turning back to Duna, “what the hell made you think this had something to do with now?”
“A few weeks before the disaster,” Duna replied, pacing on the broad rock, his hands clasped behind his back, “I was at the University on Denla. I received a communication chip from my old friend, Unam Bela, an associate of Creda’s. He told me that Creda had called him to the site of a new municipal construction in Barjan. City planners decided to ignore the old tradition about not digging in the Barjan Deep. The work uncovered many old artifacts, but recently at the deepest levels, they uncovered fragments of ancient metal, an alloy of an unfamiliar type. MRI and sonic scanners revealed a sub-cavern below. He was going to join Creda on the dig. The disaster occurred two weeks later.”
Duna stopped pacing for a few seconds. “I did not believe it myself at first. Like most, I thought the Conchirri engineered it somehow. Gradually, I began to wonder if there could be something in the old tales of an evil buried in Barjan Deep. After I discussed my thoughts with a few of my fellow survivors, I became so discouraged that I told no one but Telisan here. I swore him to secrecy long before we met you, Captain.”
Fenaday looked at Telisan. The Denlenn did not meet his eyes, but said, “I have carried the burden of two secrets; this and my knowledge of the zone of death. I no longer bear either weight but feel no lighter.” He threw a small log on the fire, as if it mirrored the disturbance in his soul, it cast a shower of sparks upward.
His head came up and he looked squarely at Fenaday. Light from the camp lights flared in his alien eyes. “I fear I have not fully kept my oath to serve you as I served the captain of the Empress Aran. You may have my resignation if you wish.”
Was Once a Hero Page 14
