The Circle and Star

by John Foster

  Indr nodded, and then looked around for another body, spying one, he limped over to it and easily picked it up, standing bent over, he let out a burp. Grinning he looked back at Cerix who snarled and Indr hurriedly limped to the west wing door to take the food that swung like a heavy sack up to Tier. Cerix looked around in the darkness of the night and saw that the sunrise was just starting. His eyes had evolved for use at night and while that did not mean he could see clearly, he could see different shades of light and dark more clearly than a human and that often meant an advantage.

  West continued running, stopping to rest, then off again. He referred to his HDA to locate himself and had attempted to take a shortcut to the Alamo but it had cost him more in time as it had obstacles that weren’t on his maps. So much for relying on high technology he thought. He stopped at the corner where the west and north buildings of the Alamo met and he approached cautiously. He turned on his night vision but it blinked once and failed. He fiddled with the controls to the best of his knowledge but the device wouldn’t return to night vision mode. It was probably in need of a serious recharge and wouldn’t accept the load that the night vision required. He fumed over this setback but put it aside, his priority was finding Kal. If he miscalculated, Kal would probably be dead, or never seen again. He involuntarily shivered at what the lizard people might do to her. He crouched down and moved along the face of the building taking what cover and the darkest shadows he could find. He moved from one obstacle to another taking advantage of every bit of shelter. His only hope was that the lizards would be tired and would take advantage of the dead troopers and the supplies that were here and stop to rest. He knew they could be vicious but the fact they hadn’t killed her outright suggested they were preserving her. He had no idea of why they would consider her important, but he was grateful in any event. They could have just as easily taken Volkum but hadn’t. His mind raced with the possibilities and realized his scientific training was going to get him killed while he sat and thought of all the variables. He shook his head to rid his mind of the distractions and focused on being unobserved and getting down the street.

  West could see dim dark shapes on the pavement and one of them was next to the building he was approaching. He paused to consider them, knowing that they were probably dead Sovar troopers. The crew had looted the bodies of anything useful and left the troopers to be disposed of by the sand creatures who he assumed were some type of organic maintenance. He cracked his helmet visor hoping that it would help his hearing but he knew that the helmet had various levels of sensitivity that could be enhanced and his was already tuned up as high as it could be. Since the wind had died down it was quite peaceful. His footsteps sounded like he was walking on gravel but he knew it was just the coarse sand from the storm. He neared one body and could see something was wrong and realized it was ripped up and as he got adjacent to it his gorge rose as he realized it had been partly eaten. The flesh around the face had been chewed away exposing the dark brown and blood stained skull beneath. The chest cavity had been ripped open as if it had been cut with meat scissors and the ribs broken up and pulled outward as the monster had taken the heart and lungs. His face felt flushed and his hair rose on the back of his neck at the thoughts that raced through his mind, and he found himself shivering. With an effort, he stopped his shaking and put his hand on the ground to keep from falling over. Sweat poured down his face and his teeth clenched. He had to take control as his mind struggled with what he had seen. He looked away from the body, slowed his breathing, relaxed his mouth, opened the visor the whole way to let the air in, and took another deep breath. His shaking slowed and he could feel his face, hot like he had a fever. The cool air calmed him and he looked up in sudden panic that in his preoccupation he hadn’t been aware and he whirled around with his rifle leveled out. It was dark but the sun was starting to come up and he could see no movement. He peered around and then turned back again looking down the opposite end of the street.

  He calmed and took another deep breath. He was going to get through this and rescue Kal.

  He moved forward his senses highly tuned. He felt like a tightly wound spring that would jump 10 feet if let loose. He knew he had to be in total control. There were three of them and if he were to survive he would have to be calm and rational. He noticed a tunnel rat ahead by the edge of the curb and wondered if it was the one that Volkum had showed him the footage of the lizard people. Tunnel rats? Something that could be used? West thought about it and knew he could make it move in a straight line without the remote control, but he doubted that he had the time or expertise to make it do much more than that. Could that be useful? He crawled up to the side of blackened and charred outer wall of the west building which was adjacent to the curb. He reached out and looked at the miniature remote camera. He knew that Volkum wouldn’t be using the remote but he wondered if he could attract Amal’s attention. He looked over the device and found a little bumper on the top that when pressed would activate a buzzer. This was used when the critter got turned over and would need human assistance to right itself. West pressed the little bar several times and a little yellow light blinked but there was no response and the camera didn’t swivel. No one home. West manipulated the little device and sent it scooting down the street for a hundred feet. It could be hand programmed to run up to a hundred feet without the remote but would just sit there until reactivated. While its camera would be running in the interim someone would still have to be looking at the monitor and West doubted that Amal or Volkum would be doing that.

  As Cerix moved up the broken walls and rubble of the tower his eye caught the movement of some small creature in the street below that moved towards the tower. He could tell it was small and it had run right to a dead trooper and Cerix believed it was feeding on the dead man. That reminded him that he had not yet eaten and he hurried up to join Tier and Indr who would be wolfing down that meat that Indr had dragged up. The last part of the tower was not accessible except for a plank of some heavy plastic that Tier had used to bridge over a gap between the tower staircase and the room that Tier had found to hole up in. The plank moved under his weight and made a noise as it did and Cerix was pleased. It would be an alarm if someone penetrated the area and made it up here. He didn’t think the humans could do that but he didn’t put it past the Soshi to do something clever. Cerix crawled the last bit not willing to put his standing weight on the slipping plank. He could see Tier and Indr feeding and they looked up in fear. He took a handful of meat that Indr was about to mouth and took it away from him. Cerix looked down and saw that most of the corpse had been eaten and struck Indr full across the face with the handful of meat covering his head in blood and gore. He grabbed Indr by the throat and pulled him up and shook him. “I should eat you and may yet.” He flung Indr into the wall with a crash as debris and broken masonry slid down to the piles of broken plaster and fell to the distant ground below. Cerix ran to the edge of the floor where the wall had toppled and dropped to his hands and knees looking down searching for evidence that anything had seen or heard him. Cerix turned and rose up again and walked to Indr who cowered and scrambled backward to avoid Cerix who stopped a few feet away.

  “Go down and get more food.” Indr whimpered and slid and crawled away from the room almost falling to the quadrangle below. Cerix turned to Tier and said, “We’ll have fresh meat tomorrow,” and turned to watch Indr climb down the tower. Tier gave a ghastly smile, rubbed his hands, and laughed in anticipation.

  West had crawled and made his way into the west building when he heard the rattle of something in the tower falling and then tumbling down to the street below. West could see something large crawling and moving down the edge of the tower over fallen walls and into the south wing. The early morning light glinted off parts of the creature and he looked up to see if any more were coming down but saw nothing. Billowing gusts of sand darkened the area and it was almost pitch black again. He was nervous that he lost sight of the first lizard and moved fast t
o see if he could reestablish contact with it. He didn’t want one of the monsters behind him but couldn’t see where it went. He moved cautiously avoiding any debris he could see or feel in the intermittent darkness. West was helped by his memory because he had helped remove the debris and rubble from the main path into the south building and tower. He knew there were also open areas he would have to cross between the two buildings to get to the tower. He just hoped he could do it in the fading darkness. He heard a noise from the other side of the building toward the main street he had just quit. He moved across and looked out a window and could see nothing moving. He went to the door he had come through earlier and peered out and heard another noise towards the corner of the tower and west building. He peered around the corner but couldn’t see anything but darkness and shadows. Something clattered down and broke in the same place. West couldn’t identify what it was other than something had moved in that area. He leaned out farther and started to creep out from the door and moved slowly towards the corner in a crouch.

  A large dark form across the street half rose into a crouch from a dead body that it had been sniffing and peered at the stealthy movement and saw a human move out of the doorway and towards the tower. A human! Indr didn’t know who it was but it had a Sovar helmet on and more importantly realized that it was armed. No matter, it would soon be dead. Indr knew that Cerix was unhappy with him and bringing this dead human would help lessen that anger. Indr was damaged and knew that he was on borrowed time anyway and this might be enough to give him more time to heal. He moved faster, but realized his leg wasn’t going to cooperate and that he might fall if he moved too quickly. He lay down on the ground and started to crawl in the direction of the intruder and realized that he would look like another body in the dark. He then noticed the little machine that he had found earlier when he was looking for a body to eat. It had been tucked up into the body of the trooper but was now lying on its side facing him where he had thrown it when he realized it wasn’t dangerous. It had tiny lights on and they were blinking but Indr didn’t feel threatened and paid no more attention to it.

  Volkum watched Amal bandage Cesar’s head and neck so that it couldn’t move when they left tomorrow. She didn’t want it bleeding anymore and this was the extent of her medical knowledge. Volkum could feel the pain in his leg and was rubbing it in its bandage when he noticed the remote for the tunnel rat in his pack was beeping. He started to crawl over to it but Amal seeing him move asked him to come back and hold Cesar’s head so that she could tie off the strips of gauze. Volkum looked to the remote and shrugged his shoulder and crawled back to Amal and Cesar.

  West continued to creep slowly forward trying to discern what had been moving ahead of him. He knew that at least one lizard was loose but he hadn’t seen anything but had heard that noise. He was cautious and scanned to the right his rifle leveled and ready. He saw a dark form on the ground and studied it a moment. He didn’t remember a trooper there before but realized it must have been and ignored it. He saw what he thought was the tunnel rat next to it lying on its side. For some reason, he found that odd but couldn’t think why. He reminded himself to be calm and careful. He turned back to the corner where he presumed the real threat to be and inched forward.

  Indr was frozen, watching the human pointing that rifle at him and almost panicked when he saw the barrel dip lower in his direction. He closed his eyes certain he was a dead Saar. Nothing happened, he willed his eyes to open and the man had turned away and was continuing to move towards the far corner. Indr grinned and started to crawl forward but nudged up against the little machine and it flipped over and then finally settled on its tracks. As it rolled over its lights had started to blink continuously and then suddenly stopped. Indr froze again and cursed his stupidly in rolling the thing but the human gave no sign it had heard and was still approaching the shadows. Indr started to crawl closer towards the unsuspecting person.

  Volkum was holding the last bandage when he heard the beeping again but continued to hold it until it beeped several times continuously. He held out the bandage to Amal who started to argue with him but he ignored her and moved to his pack where he pulled out the remote and peered at the screen. It took a moment to see what was happening and the night vision camera on the rat gave him a clear sight of what was transpiring in front of him. He could see something large and dark looming over the rat and then the thing started to crawl away. Volkum rotated the camera and at first couldn’t see anything but fading darkness but then he narrowed the intensity of the light and he saw a figure in a trooper helmet and he realized he was looking at the west building and the tower of the Alamo or somewhere near there. He could see the figure was the familiar silhouette of a person with a laser rifle and realized that it must be West. Then who was crawling towards West? Volkum rotated the camera back to the thing next to the rat and zoomed back and could see nothing but a dark mass and then the creature turned to see what was making the noise and looked directly into the camera and saw Indr’s silently snarling face.

  Volkum jerked up holding the remote and yelled, “Look out West,” then remembering there wasn’t any sound pressed the forward move throttle all the way and had it run into the crawling lizard who jumped up in a fury, snarled down at the rat, and then ran towards West his claws reaching out to close with him. West heard the little screech of the track wheels and turned his head to the noise and was surprised to see the body next to it jump up and run full tilt at him with its arms thrust out and huge claws extended. He jerked back and pulled his weapon to bear on the creature but was slow and the monster knocked the weapon away and out of his grasp while West twisted and ducked under the charge. West managed to slip out of the monster’s grasp, his shirt ripping, as the lizard slashed at him and West rolled into the street. Indr momentarily bewildered by the sudden turn of events turned to see the Terran rolling on the pavement and ran to attack him but as he turned his damaged leg gave out and he tumbled down into the street almost next to West and howled his fury. West rolled away from the lizard, grabbing his pistol from his belt, and fired as the monster reached out with his claws towards West’s face. The claws raked the helmet and knocked West’s head back, the laser gun discharging its energy into the air. Indr rose up on his knees and reached out to grab the man’s helmet with his other claw and was astonished to see the little machine running right at him with its lights flashing and that was just enough time for West to turn the pistol and pull the trigger a second time. There was a horrific hiss as the laser cut a neat hole in Indr’s head and without a sound the creature fell over, his lips curled back in a snarl, and his eyes rolled up into his head. West blinked and looked at the monster before him. He paused a moment and then suspecting the other lizards were aware of him ran to the west building and ducked inside. Volkum watched him go and rotated the camera around trying to see why West had run off into the building but could see nothing.

  Cerix watched from the tower and saw a human run back into the street and pluck something from near Indr and then duck back into the west wing. He heard a moan and the woman was moving slightly and then she moaned again. He took Tier by the shoulder and shook him. Tier stood amazed and trembling. “You go down and kill the Terran, there is only one,” said Cerix. Tier hesitated and Cerix said, “Do it!” Tier’s eyes brightened and a line of drool formed at the corner of his mouth. He started to cross the plank but Cerix stopped him and gave him his rifle. He thrust it at him in anger knowing that his Saars were not yet capable of doing much more than hand to hand combat. Tier slung the rifle and tightened it against his body so that it wouldn’t make any noise on the way down. The assassin crossed the plank and crawled down watching below for movement. Cerix removed the plank to his side of the gap and sat and listened.

  There was a place on the next floor that had openings in various places that Tier could pot shot at the Terran and he elected to lay in ambush. The morning light would silhouette the attacker and Tier looked for a good spot to lie in wait. He knew
his marksmanship was poor and he didn’t want to give the Terran any advantages by allowing him an easy shot. The spot Tier chose was easily defensible and dark which would work to his advantage. The only way up to this point and the tower room above was on a collapsed heap of wall that had fallen across the stairs. Whoever came up would be an easy target from within the room Tier had chosen. Just to be sure, Tier wedged himself in a niche that would give him a view of the opening in the broken wall to the stairway. He would wait.

  West listened but couldn’t hear anything above. He was certain that the monsters were aware of him, how could they not be? He pulled the little tunnel rat out of his jacket and looked into the camera. He smiled and silently said thank you. He put the rat back into his shirt and continued to scout the way up the tower.

  He could see the slumped exterior wall of the tower had fallen outward exposing the spiral staircase and portions of the interior rooms. This was the way up and he knew that there was no other way. That simplified things in one sense but complicated them in another. It meant they wouldn’t be able to get behind him but it also meant there was only one way for him to get to them. West felt strangely calm now, alert, and in full command. He moved forward watching the rooms above as he crept up the piles of rubble. He could see tiny dark blobs on the rubble before him that his finger could smear and he assumed it was blood. That meant this was the way the lizards had moved up the tower and that reassured him. As he moved up the rubble ramp, he realized that there wasn’t a place above him that they could shoot down at him unless he entered one of the rooms where various support beams had fallen to the ground floor leaving circular jagged gaps in the floors. He soon came level with the first open floor before him. He peered around the corner and then just as quickly jerked back. His newfound confidence started to falter as he realized that a plasma beam this close to his face would certainly blind or kill him even with his helmet visor on. He would have to find a way to distract the lizards to take them out. Fortunately, they weren’t on the first level and he struggled with a means to even the odds. He continued to climb the broken masonry moving from one pile to another and slipping on loose pieces. He came to the third level and peered up but saw nothing. He was about 10 feet from the broken opening into the room and was sure this was where one of them would be waiting. West realized he probably only had one chance and that he would need a diversion to be successful. He thought a moment and then realized he had a surprise that would give him that split-second advantage that he needed.