“Captain, I’ll need the rope,” Edna said, hand extended.
Mars eyed her one more time, then nodded. “Be careful,” he said at last, giving her the line.
“You be careful, sir,” Edna said with a wink. “You’ve got to get us off this rock and back home.”
Mars turned on himself and scanned the horizon. The Sels were nowhere to be found on the skyline. Edna began to pick her way up the wallface. Simpson moved in past Lisa, Barry and Anna, taking Mars aside. “You sure that was a good idea, boss?”
“No,” Mars said evenly. “But we’re out of reasonable options, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Sally had moved off from the group, to the sand trap edge. She was busy impaling pitvipers, those that were bold enough to approach the edge, contemplating invading the area surrounding the sand basin. Anna was busy picking off strays on the opposite bank. Together, they made an effective rear guard team.
“I’m still not entirely sure I understand why the alien is helping us,” Mars said to Simpson.
“Well, she did kind of give me an idea how their world is set up,” Simpson conceded.
“She did?” Mars said, surprised.
“That’s not entirely accurate. Actually, she didn’t say a damn thing to me. But when I was unconscious, she got into my mind somehow. What’s the word for it?”
“Telepathy,” Mars offered.
“Right. Anyway, here’s the skinny: The Sel society is cut up three ways. The Warriors are the leaders and by the way, that’s the main bulk of the population. They truck all over the universe and kill other civilizations, or take them over. Not a nice group of folks.”
“No,” Mars agreed. “Go on.”
“The Workers are next down the hierarchy. They build the spaceships and maintain the cities. Kind of the keepers of technology, if you get my drift.”
“Where does our alien malcontent come in?” Mars jerked a thumb toward Sally.
“She’s a Drone. Drones are the lowest guys on the food chain. Their function is to care for the Newborns and heal the sick or injured.”
“Newborns,” Mars repeated, then nodded. “Well, sure. They have to reproduce, I imagine.”
“Unfortunately, the Drones area also used for scientific experimentation, like cattle. Apparently, the Sels are damn near indestructible, and they don’t kill one another. But everything else goes, all to further the collective cause and advancement of Sel livelihood.”
“Talk about class warfare,” Mars said.
“Sally, here, I get the impression she hates the fact that her species is expanding outwards and invading everything in sight,” Simpson continued. “They have the least to say about what happens in their society, but they’re also the most sensitive and peaceful.”
Mars looked at Simpson, impressed. “You sure got an education while you were under.”
“Don’t ask me how she did it. In any case, she saved my life. Now, I have a question for you.”
“Go ahead,” Mars said.
“You really think we have a chance in Texas hell of getting home?”
Mars looked at the other man without blinking, then again scanned the horizon. He then turned back and found Edna halfway up the wallface, rope looped over her shoulder. The woman was picking herself expertly from ledge to ledge, making decent headway to the top. Mars could hear her panting from the exertion and felt a momentary pang of guilt that he didn’t press to go himself. But a moment later, she reached the lip of the top part of the cliff and dragged herself over it.
“Helluva lady,” Simpson nodded to himself.
Lisa angled close to Simpson, with Barry tagging behind. Mars turned to her, and looked at Lisa’s high heels. “You’ll have to lose the shoes, Dr. Maynard,” he said.
Lisa nodded, and began removing the stylish heels. Mars glanced up to see Edna tossing down the last portion of rope, now already lashed to a boulder high above. Edna, still out breath, waved to them from the top. Mars waved back and gave her a thumbs up.
Edna was pleased with herself. Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest, and she felt mildly nauseous, but she knew this was just an alcoholic response to the exertion of climbing the damn mountain. Not bad for an old boozy broad, she thought with satisfaction. If only Paul could have been here...
The thought of her dead husband ripped through her momentary joy. She began to cry, still trying to catch her breath. She did not see the pit viper pop out of the ground behind her and move silently to within striking distance. She turned, and tried to backpedal at the sight of the horrible creature, but her timing was too late.
The snake struck at her, sinking its powerful maw into her shoulder and began to chew. She let out a scream, but what came out of her mouth was a gurgle of pain and surprise. The pain from the bite was agonizing, but it didn’t seem to match another pain deep within her chest.
The world began to turn gray and stars fizzled in and out of her eyeline.
I could sure use a drink right about now, her mind said crazily all at once. Through the pain, she let out a small laugh.
Mars pulled at the rope and when he was satisfied it was secure and would support the combined weight of six other people, including a large alien, he called to Edna.
“Alright, Mrs. Casey,” he said. “We’re coming up.”
Edna did not respond. Mars’ alert antennae went up immediately.
“Edna!” he called out again. No answer. No Edna.
“She may be hurt,” Lisa said. “Let me go first.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Mars agreed this time without hesitation. If Edna needed immediate medical attention, better Lisa be on top first; besides, he would be one minute behind her. Lisa grabbed the rope and pulled herself up the stone precipice.
Mars turned to Simpson. “Mind bringing up the rear with your new partner?”
“My pleasure,” Simpson agreed.
Anna was jogging back from the sand basin edge. “I’m going to do a little backtracking along the chain of rocks in the sand. See what’s gaining on us.”
Mars didn’t like the idea of Anna doing her own private reconnaissance, but he realized it was sound strategic and tactical thinking. Anna could see the concern and hesitation in his eyes, and she smiled. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll be on the mountain in two minutes. Keep the rope warm.”
“Count on it,” Mars said.
Anna turned and broke into a jog back toward the sand basin.
Simpson turned to Sally, as Mars began scaling the rockface behind Lisa. Barry followed Mars, staying close to the Captain.
“Okay, old girl. Up we go,” Simpson said good-naturedly to the Sel alien.
But Sally would have none of it. She shook her head in the best imitation of a human nod. “No can. Claws. I stay behind.”
Simpson understood the conundrum immediately. “Well, we have to get up there, Sally.”
Sally again nodded, this time in the affirmative. “No problem.”
And with that, she began to scale the rockface parallel to the rope that Mars and the others were using to climb themselves. Sally utilized all eight claws to find the appropriate purchase in the cliff-face and her speed ascending was double that of the human party. Simpson nodded, impressed. He then grabbed the rope and began pulling himself up, still wondering to some degree if he was going to wake up at any moment and chalk all of this up to a bad dream.
Ravers checked his watch and looked up at the two suns glaring overhead. Some strange and frightening cloud formations were beginning to form over the area that was now formally known as the Gauntlet. On this world, he was not sure what kind of climactic anomalies could be expected other than freak wind storms. He had given Mars all the information he needed, and though he suspected that Mars and his people would never survive the hellish demands of the Sel Gauntlet, Ravers at least hoped he had kept his side of the bargain with the truth.
The Sel robots suddenly began to lurch forward, now in the direction that Mars had taken wit
h the others. Ravers stepped forward and yelled at the leadman.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
The Sel Leader didn’t bother to reply. It had been instructed by the Controller to activate. He and the others continued forward. Ravers now ran in front of the Leader, waving his arms.
“You’re supposed to give them thirty minutes. That was the deal.”
A burst of pain shafted through his mind and chest simultaneously. A warning. Then the telepathic message filtered through a million different synapses in his brain, breaking down the Sel will into the human language that Ravers could understand:
We have waited long enough. We move now.
No, not fair, Ravers responded … a childish response, he thought through waves of pain.
I am the Controller. The hunt begins now.
Ravers caught his breath, his head and chest still pounding with the now diminishing waves of pain. “You bastards,” me muttered. “You can’t even give them what I promised?”
What you promised matters nothing to us. It is time to observe the Big Man. Join us if you like.
Then they were gone, all four robots now in an eight legged trot and picking up speed. Ravers knew better than to argue. Ever since Contact with the damn things, the Sel will was one that left little latitude for any kind of negotiation. He secured his pulse rifle over his shoulder, and broke into a run after the robots.
Anna hip-hopped over the large rocks, occasionally picking off an intrepid pit-viper that strayed too close for comfort. By this time, the snakes were all too familiar with the power of the immolating pulse rifle, and decided that a respectable distance was the best course of action to take when it came to the alien humans in their territory. This did not preclude an occasional pugnacious individual from trying to sneak up on the bipeds, but so far the survival rate of all such attempts had been deplorably poor. The snakes hissed in unison from a chorus line fifty feet away, as the last of their scouts was blown into a hundred pieces by the fury of Anna’s weapon.
She now turned her attention to the horizon, that part of the world where Anna knew the robot Sels would any minute appear. According to her watch, they still had time. But as she looked up and saw the four sentinels churning up dust only half a mile away, she realized that Ravers again had betrayed them.
“You son of a bitch,” she screamed into the wind. And wind it was she suddenly noticed. Anna looked up at the swirling clouds overhead; red, brown and black coalesced two thousand feet or so directly above her and she was reminded of the old style Kansas tornadoes back at home.
Home. So far away, a million light years.
She refused to think about that right now. Turning and firing at yet another pit viper that had strayed too close, she ran off the rock island back to the cliff face. Lisa Maynard was nearing the top, Mars only a few feet behind her. Anna grabbed the tail end of the tie line and began climbing. She yelled up to Mars.
“John, they’re ten minutes behind us,” she hollered. “Ravers lied.”
Mars just nodded. Of course he lied. He’s one of them now…
Lisa Maynard crawled over the cliff edge and looked at Edna, now gasping for breath just a few feet away.
“Edna!”
Edna turned a weak head toward the younger woman. “Be careful. It’s still around here.”
“What’s around here?”
In answer to her question, a sharp pain bit into her ankle. She wheeled on herself, sitting on her butt, staring at the pit viper attached to her foot. Suddenly, the snake was blown apart by a blast of well aimed fire.
Mars marine crawled toward Lisa, checking her ankle, then looked at Edna, who was already purple with oxygen deprivation.
“When -- when I see Paul,” Edna managed, “I’m gonna tell him a thing or two.” She reached out and grabbed Mars’ hand and squeezed. Mars squeezed back. Edna then let her chin sink into her chest, as she died.
Lisa felt for a pulse, her own pain causing her to wince with the effort. “She’s gone, Captain.”
Mars turned to look at the huge snake, now vivisected by the pulse beam he’d used against it. He then considered Lisa’s own chewed ankle. Lisa noticed that her breathing was becoming labored.
“Must be neurotoxic,” Lisa gasped for breath, still able to analyze the physiological events taking place in her own body despite the increasing difficulty. “The venom must paralyze pulmonary function. Ultimate cause of death would have to be – congestive heart failure.”
Lisa looked frightened, and Mars felt infuriatingly helpless. This was his biggest fear, a recurring nightmare that simply shifted in terms of time and location: that people in his charge again would one by one begin to die and he would he unable to help them.
“What -- what can I do?” Mars asked her.
Lisa smiled painfully. “This is -- my area of expertise. Nothing -- to protect the heart from the poison. Much like the venom of a cobra, I would guess. Painless in the end,” she said. Lisa then looked to Mars and whispered. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’m not afraid to die.”
Sally emerged over the cliff face nearby, and bounded toward both of them. Barry crawled over as well and froze when he saw Edna and Lisa side by side, one of the women motionless.
Mars looked to Sally. “One of the snakes got her. Can you do anything?”
Lisa grabbed hold of Mars, more for comfort, to hold onto another human being, as the life began to ebb out of her body. Simpson crawled over the lip and stared at Lisa. Their eyes connected for a long moment.
“What’s going on, Jersey?”
She fought for breath. “Was kind of looking forward to that drink with you, Texas,” she said, wheezing horribly. Simpson’s face blanched, as he glanced at the dead snake ten feet away. “Oh, no,” he said softly.
Simpson crawled over to Lisa, then looked at Sally. “Do something, Sally. Please.”
Sally raised her tail and plunged the stinger with surprising gentleness into Lisa’s arm. Lisa grimaced momentarily with surprise.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mars snapped.
“This will make -- death -- less difficult...” Sally hissed.
Lisa suddenly began to breathe a little easier. She smiled, and turned to Sally, grateful. “You’re right,” she said. “Feels like a double martini just hit my blood stream.”
Sally just stared, not understanding the reference to the Earthside beverage. She had merely injected the equivalent of human adrenaline into the human’s body. Enough to preserve life a little while longer…
“Thank you," Lisa nodded to Sally.
Anna pulled herself over the cliff edge, last of the human party. She twisted on her butt, glancing out over the horizon. She could now make out with terrible detail the Sel robots boring down on their present position.
“John, we don’t have a lot of time,” she said.
It took very fiber of being and will to suppress the screaming rage about to blow within Mars. Not this woman, too, he cried out from within. But he realized no one was listening, not here, not on Planet Hell. “Doctor,” he hesitated. “We have to keep moving. I --”
“I’ll be dead in five minutes, Captain. I won’t be joining you,” she said softly.
“Dead,” Simpson snarled. “Not a chance. Old Sally here won’t let that happen, will you, Sal?”
Sally replied evenly in her stilted speech. “Death will be less difficult, but certain.”
Decisions had to be made, notwithstanding the concentration of tragedy within a span of minutes. Mars leaned in to Lisa and whispered. “I’m staying here with you, doctor. I’ll send the others ahead.”
Lisa reached for her laser pistol and pulled it free from the holster at her side. “I don’t need you to do that, Captain. Thank you anyway.”
“No arguments,” Mars said. He turned to Simpson: “You take the others ahead, Wes. Anna will bring up the rear.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to follow that particular order,” Simpson said in a low voice. “Y
ou’re still the Great White Hope, captain. I’ll stay here with Jersey, and buy you some time with these big mechanical bastards on our tail.”
“Unacceptable,” Mars said. “Do as I ask you --”
“Right, and I’m a qualified flight pilot, especially in alien flying saucers.”
“The ship is completely automated, remember?”
“According to Ravers,” Anna piped in. “He lied to us already about the thirty minute head start, John. God knows what we’ll find on board the ship. If there is even a ship. Mr. Simpson is right. You can’t stay here.”
Mars felt badgered, but again he recognized the correct decision, even though he damned it on every level. Lisa tugged at his sleeve and smiled courageously. “Get out of here, Captain. And by the way, I’m never flying your cruddy airline again, you hear?”
Mars fought to keep the lump in his throat at ground level. He just nodded, then leaned in and kissed Lisa on the forehead. Mars then turned to Simpson, and extended his hand. “We’ll remember the Alamo,” he said.
“Damn right you will,” Simpson grinned.
Mars turned to Anna and Barry. “Let’s move.”
Anna walked to Lisa, and reached for the dying woman’s hand. No words passed between them; there was no need. Barry stood over Lisa for just a second, then leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s not fair,” he whispered to her.
“It never is,” she said, her breathing again becoming labored, Sally’s short term panacea beginning to wear thin. “Go home and grow up safe,” Lisa managed, holding Barry’s hand tight in hers. Mars thought that the likelihood of Barry doing either, given the circumstances, was next to nil.
Barry began to cry and tore himself away from her. Last to leave was Sally, who just stared at Simpson. “You -- no come?”
“Can’t, Sally ol’ girl,” he said with a tired shrug.
Mars, The Bringer Of War Page 19
