She heard a crash and a crackle as fire circled the far side of the rise. They would never outrun it. They needed to find shelter. But the smoke was too thick to see her resonator screen. All she recalled of the area was a hill carved with animal runs and a gully of… Muck. Wet, rotten leaves.
She twisted the platform about. “This way.”
They forced their burden over the dry ground. Dead brush sprouted from dust to tangle the runner.
Impani licked sweat from her upper lip. Her legs trembled against the sled’s load. Through heavy haze, she made out the gully. Trace seemed to guess her strategy and redoubled his efforts. They manhandled the sled toward the dark mire.
The ditch was eight to ten meters long, less than two meters wide. She reached in and could not feel the bottom.
“It’s wet.” She shook her arm. “But no standing water.”
“Get the belts off,” Trace said. “We’ll dump him in easy and run for the river.”
Impani unhooked the belts from the sled, but the clasps had tangled in the long fur and she couldn’t remove them from the animal. “They’re stuck,” she cried, ripping at the buckle.
“Let’s get him in first,” Trace said.
The sled tilted, and the creature made a startled sound as it fought the slide.
“There, now,” Trace told it. “Just leave the work to us.”
He cradled the leg as the heavy body fell into the mud. Blood streaked his skinsuit. Crawling into the trench, he scooped armfuls of black leaves onto the animal’s fair pelt. Muck reached over his knees.
“It’s not deep enough,” he said. “He’s too exposed. We’ll have to tilt the sled on top.”
Impani looked back at the approaching flames. Brush hissed and crackled. “What about the belts?”
But Trace was already dragging the platform. She hurried to help him. They pulled the sled until it formed a lean-to against higher ground. The wood cleared the muddy creature by scant centimeters.
“Coat the top.” Trace scooped handfuls of muck onto the poles.
She climbed into the ditch. Mud sucked at her boots. With a rotten log, she pushed more sludge toward her partner.
Dark, dripping leaves heaped the overturned sled. The creature looked out with frightened eyes.
“That’s good,” he yelled. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”
He leaped out of the pit and ran. Fire raced him along the dry brush. A glowing rift appeared in a tree. The trunk split.
“Look out!” she cried.
He slid on his backside, arms over his head. The tree fell as if in slow motion. Flames skimmed the ruptured wood and flew in streamers. The trunk knocked over thinner trees as it bounded toward him.
Impani rushed to her partner. The burning trunk crashed to the ground. A flurry of sparks filled the air.
“Get up!” She beat cinders from his suit.
He raised his head, eyes wide, face gray behind the faceplate. His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear what he said.
She shook him. “Get up!” Her skin was crisping.
Heat radiated from the trunk. Flames sprang wherever sparks met the ground. The air turned blue with smoke. On the hill, fire leaped in quickly moving patches. It roared and snapped. Another tree fell.
Her throat constricted. Couldn’t breathe. She fought the impulse to strip away her mask. With a strength borne of panic, she dragged him to his feet.
Trace glanced about as if lost. Superheated air rose in waves around him. “Go back.” He tugged her toward the gully.
She blinked with distorted afterimages. Her skin felt shrunken and tight. She stumbled after him, clutching her chest and coughing.
He dove headfirst beneath the lean-to. Smoke rose from the ends of the muck-covered poles. Dreamlike, Impani slid into the mud. She crawled beneath the sled and squirmed behind the creature. With a start, she closed her hand over the forgotten utility belts tangled in the animal’s fur, and she clung to them as the blaze surrounded the gully.
<<>>
Director Hammond drummed her fingers upon her desk, still staring at the phone’s blank screen. She couldn’t believe the vote had gone against her. What a political nightmare. The Colonial Expansion Board may have no choice but to disband. After all these years, she was going to be out of a job.
A knock sounded at her door, and Mogley stepped in. He’d probably been watching her on the in-house, waiting for her to disconnect. She didn’t like Magnus Mogley. She knew the Board assigned him as her assistant to spy on her department, but that wasn’t what bothered her about him. It was his patronizing, ingratiating tone, as if his main role was to keep her quiet until all decisions were made.
“They’ve got their stay of operations,” she told him. “The courts have officially shut down the academy. And do you know how they’re doing it? Child labor laws. They claim the Colonial Scouts program exploits teenaged children.”
“That’s easy enough to avert.” His round face beamed as he sat across from her. “Just raise our age requirements to, say, twenty-five.”
“Do you know the difference between a fifteen-year-old and a twenty-five-year-old?”
He spread his hands. “Experience?”
“Exactly. And experience equals caution. A fifteen-year-old kid wouldn’t hesitate to skate down the walls of an ice hole or parasail over a volcano. They might think it was fun. We wouldn’t learn half as much about these alien worlds if our Scouts were of age.” She rubbed her forehead. “On the other hand, if they were old enough to have degrees in Impellics and Theory, we might not be faced with the problem we have now.”
“That is why I needed to speak with you, ma’am. Chief Astrut reports that his technician has refined his calculations. They’re ready for a second rescue attempt.”
“We can’t,” Hammond said, knowing he would report anything to the contrary. “I’ve been given my orders. No one makes another jump. As of this moment, the Impellic Chambers are off limits.” She looked away. Those poor children. Their safety was her responsibility. Now they would die because of political red tape. Even if there was a way to save them, she had no authority to try. “Private ownership is beginning to look better all the time.”
<<>>
Fire raged down the hill like a living entity, consuming everything in its path. Impani clung to the belts. She burrowed deeper into the side of the gully. The pliable mud yielded to the pressure of her back. Trace’s arms encircled her shoulders. The animal pressed against her legs. A coppery taste filled her mouth, and she realized she had bitten her cheek.
Something struck the top of the sled, and all three jumped. A flaming branch rolled over the edge. Then a tree fell into the gully, hitting the ground with a loud crash. Sparks flew from the trunk. They struck the lean-to and hissed in the mire.
Impani shielded her head. Screams moved up her throat in fist-sized bubbles. Oh God, oh God. She looked at the burning tree. Tears rolled down her face and spattered the inside of her mask—and part of her shouted stop it. You’ll need the moisture.
A branch bounded off the platform, knocking it askew. The creature fell limp. She clung to its body in terror.
Then nausea struck.
She recognized it immediately—an Impellic ring was forming to claim her. But instead of relief, she felt growing rage. Why was this happening? Each planet seemed worse than the last. Her stomach twisted as the void spiraled nearer.
Trace turned as if speaking, but she couldn’t hear him over the fire, couldn’t see his face through the haze. Another tree limb struck. The rope snapped. With a clatter of poles, their meager shelter fell apart.
Then the ring latched onto her. The flames turned dark. The world receded.
Impani groaned. With one hand, she gripped the creature before her. With the other, she clutched the belts. Trace’s arms wrapped her chest so tightly she could barely breathe. She hit the black barrier with a sensation of ripping open and twisting inside out.
Then her butt bounced on the ground. She blinked against
sudden bright light.
White sky. White stone. Cold air sifted through the filters of her mask. Tears burned her eyes, and a sob hiccupped in her chest.
“We made it,” she whispered.
“No. Oh, no,” Trace said. “It’s dead.”
Only then did she realize the heavy creature still pressed against her legs. Wisps of smoke rose from its fur.
She yelped. “The animal came with us?”
“It was sentient. It spoke to me.”
“But that’s impossible. Impellic Theory states that a ring can carry only two people. We shouldn’t have been able to bring something this large through with us. Tree organisms, maybe, but—”
“The jump must have killed it,” he murmured. “Or maybe it lost too much blood. Ah, drel. I wanted it to live. I wanted to save it so that something good would come out of this mess.”
Impani grasped the belts still knotted in the fur. As she pulled them free, the broken buckle opened and revealed a line of blinking lights. She cracked the case farther, peering inside. Something tugged at her memory.
She’d seen a similar configuration in the control room with Mr. Ambri-Cutt. “This is a homing device.” And the significance of the words crashed over her. The belts let the ring know where they were.
But they hadn’t been wearing the belts.
“Trace, this is a homing device. The belts were on the beast. We didn’t pull it through the wormhole. It dragged us. If you hadn’t been holding onto me…” She gasped. “You would have been lost.”
“I thought they just —” His voice choked. He took his belt from her hand. “Let’s make a pact. We don’t remove our belts.”
She looked at the twinkling buckle then closed the case and snapped the belt around her. What else hadn’t the instructors told them? Did they think the cadets were too young, too stupid to grasp the concept? Impellic Theory was just that—a supposition about something no one truly understood. If they were old enough to jump to alien worlds, they had the right to full disclosure.
Deep in disgruntled mutterings, she jumped at a jab to her shoulder. A dark being with a shiny exoskeleton glared down at her from the other end of a spear. She nudged her partner. He gasped. Slowly, they rose to their feet.
Three beings stepped from behind the first. Their mouths were beaklike, and they chattered and clicked loudly. Each had four arms that were constantly in motion.
They looked like oversized ants with kilts, which would be funny if not for the spears. She raised her hand. “We come in peace.”
The chattering quit. They edged back.
The first ant pulled himself up to his full meter-and-a-half height and said clearly, “Kkind travelers. We thankk you for thiskk offering of meat.”
“You speak Standard?” Trace asked.
“I am Kkrick.” The ant creature lowered its head. It wore a long, gray scarf to match the colorless kilt. Its chest was decorated with smears of blood. “You mustkk be handlers?”
With a puzzled frown, Impani looked at Trace. His mask had darkened against the bright sunlight, and she saw the reflection of the ant instead of his face. She took a breath to ask Kkrick how he knew their language.
Trace spoke first. “Yes. We are handlers.”
“Much kkgood.” The insect-like face contorted into a horrific smile.
“How did you find us so quickly?” He motioned to the empty plain.
“Patrollingkk.”
“Patrolling against what?” Impani asked.
“Incursion, of course. Other clans are notkk to be allowed across our land. Come. We mustkk feast.”
Without looking back, Kkrick strode away. The other three ants surrounded the dead creature. Although it massed more than their combined weight, they picked it up over their heads and trailed after their leader.
“Handlers?” Impani whispered. “What are you thinking?”
“I think we’re in trouble.” He followed Kkrick.
Impani stifled a laugh that edged toward hysterics. Trouble? They’d been in trouble since the beginning of the session. She was too tired for more adventures. She wanted to go back to the academy, give her report, and sleep for a week.
Pursing her lips, she caught up to her partner. She had to walk quickly to keep up with the ant-beings. Her muscles protested, and the air seeping into her mask was so cold she thought her lungs would freeze. At least, it dispelled the smell of smoke.
“Why are we following them?” she muttered.
“We’ve been invited to a feast. It would be impolite to refuse. Besides, they have spears.”
“They have spears, we have guns.”
He chuckled. “Whatever happened to we aren’t here to butcher the locals?”
That stopped her. How could she let uncertainty and fear affect her beliefs?
Embarrassed, she said, “I don’t like bugs.”
“Well, if they’re anything like the bugs on my home world, they are strong, warlike, and numerous. And they excrete pheromones. If we kill Kkrick and his friends out here in the open, we’ll have a hundred more on us before we can find a place to hide.”
Impani looked around at the plain of flat white stone and suppressed a shudder. She didn’t want to stay on this world. “Have you noticed that each drop seems a bit longer than the last?”
“You think there’s a time limit to our tour?”
“I think we’d better figure out what’s wrong with the ring before we’re left on a planet permanently.”
Trace nodded and fell silent. Impani increased her gait. How could ant creatures outpace her on such spindly legs?
Her thoughts returned to her belt. The buckle contained a homing device, she was certain. The belts must use a beacon to call the ring to their position. If the main ring needed such a device, it followed that each subsequent ring needed the same beacon in order to latch onto them. If they had a stronger beacon, it might jar the errant ring back into alignment. But how did they build a stronger beacon?
Her footing slipped. She caught her balance, suddenly aware that they climbed a slight grade. The flat stones lay upon themselves like carefully placed shingles.
Another squad of ants chattered and waved as they passed. One had a fist-sized spider impaled on the tip of a spear. He held it over a red fissure in the rock. The spider’s legs kicked then curled as if touched by extreme heat. It gave her the bizarre image of a campfire and marshmallows.
The rise steepened. Kkrick and his party climbed. They held the dead creature high overhead. Impani’s boots skidded. Stones skittered beneath her step. She perspired, although she felt thoroughly chilled. She wished she could sit beside a fissure.
The number of ants around them increased. Many wore kilts, but some were naked. Their smooth exoskeletons shone in the bright sun. They clicked their beaks and ogled them. Kkrick walked without preamble toward a hole in the ground.
She cringed. “We aren’t actually going in there.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yes, it’s a problem. We’ll be trapped.”
“I don’t see that we have a choice. Besides, we’re handlers now. That seemed to hold some sway.”
She stared at the hole, sweating harder than ever. “What do you suppose is for supper?”
“I suspect it will be the creature we brought from the other world.” He shook his head. “I keep telling myself that dying of smoke inhalation is better than burning to death.”
“With any luck, the meat will poison them.”
One by one, Kkrick and his followers disappeared into the huge anthill.
Standing on the rim, she peered down into the darkness. “No.” She stepped back. “We can’t go in there. Too dangerous.”
“It might be more dangerous if we don’t.” Trace motioned at the many ants around them. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. We’re cadets. Don’t you want to know how these creatures live? They’re fascinating.”
“They’re bugs.”
“We need to ea
t something.”
“You said we couldn’t eat on alien worlds.”
“On a normal drop. But this isn’t normal. And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Impani winced. He was right. Until they found their way back to the academy, they would need to keep up their strength.
“Go on down,” he coaxed. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She nodded but wanted to kick herself. From the beginning, she’d hidden her claustrophobia from her instructors. Now it was coming back to bite her.
With fumbling fingers, she located her flashlight and clipped it onto her wrist. Waves of gooseflesh ran up her arms. I can do this. I’m not trapped. I can leave at any time. She stepped onto the ridge that surrounded the hole then down into the dark.
The tunnel was narrow and steep, lined floor-to-ceiling with flat stones the size of dinner plates. Red crevices pulsed like veins, making her feel like she was crawling down a monstrous throat.
The ceiling forced her into an uncomfortable crouch. She stretched her arms to the walls, afraid of falling. The pancake-like stones teetered beneath her weight. Her legs shook, and her back ached with strain. The flashlight cast a thin beam into the dark. It only served to accent her terror. The walls closed in as if the tunnel meant to swallow her.
“I can leave at any time,” she repeated like a mantra.
Sweat ran down her spine. She concentrated upon placing one foot before the other. How deep was she now? How much deeper would she be forced to go?
Then, when she thought she could stand no more, the tunnel opened. Impani stumbled to a halt, feeling dwarfed and insignificant as she gazed at the vast city of the ants.
Chapter 9
Impani goggled at a cavern at least one hundred meters high. Dimly lit caves honeycombed the walls. Ants popped in and out. They climbed slanted terraces. Light touched their gleaming carapaces and turned their bodies gold.
Several other tunnels emptied into the cave—but only one was flanked by flaming torches. Mist hung before it in low clouds.
“There they are.” Trace motioned.
Alien Worlds Page 8
