by John Shirley
Lucky glared at him, twisting from his grasp, then glanced at Dakes, who nodded, smiling. Finally, Lucky said grudgingly, “Yeah. Okay. But you got lucky just now.”
“Heh heh—he sure did ‘get Lucky.’” Dakes chuckled as Lucky stalked off toward a watchtower. “He got him facedown in the dirt.”
• • •
Mordecai was sick of tramping through this cavern. He was cold and tired, and he wanted to sleep, but it wasn’t safe to close his eyes for long—he was too vulnerable there, with only minor weaponry on him. He had only four grenades, and the Cobra combat rifle. He hadn’t wanted to take gear that Roland might need.
The cavern smelled heavily of dissolved minerals, and underneath that was a gamy animal smell. What was that? Seemed like he’d smelled that once before . . . nasty sort of smell.
He continued on, noticing that the slope angled upward. He was constantly watching for sudden crevices, trying not to trip over stalagmites, wary for subterranean predators.
And then he heard someone singing, up ahead in the cavern.
“. . . I gotta chip that lets me dance
Come on baby take a chance.”
It was that annoying little Claptrap robot with the pointless song-and-dance chip. Mordecai could hear the robot’s piping voice echoing thinly off the stalagmites and the natural stone dome of the ceiling.
He passed into another, wider chamber of the cavern, and there was the Claptrap, dancing and singing in the middle of the dirt floor. About fifty long paces ahead, light was coming in from the outside—thin, pale, silver light, probably moonlight. That must be the way out of the cavern.
The curved walls and floor there seemed more like packed dirt than stone. That smell was stronger there too, that odd animal smell.
And the robot was there, jigging and singing. “I gotta program that—”
“Hey, robot!” Mordecai barked.
The Claptrap spun around—literally spun around, more than once, till finally it was facing him. “Wha-a-at? Oh! Oh, you gave me a fright! You almost made me pee lubricant!”
“What the hell are you doing down here?”
“Why, don’t you know, Mr. Dakes set me to watching the back entrance! Of course the guardian is here, but I’m here too ’cause Dakes wants me to come and report to him if the bad lady finds the back way in and—Wait, what’s the password? You gotta say the password!”
“Never mind that. What guardian are you talking about?”
“Just the Thresher, that’s all. There was two of them, but one of them ate the other one—”
“Wait, did you say a Thresher?”
“Oh, yes. He tried to eat me and spat me out, halfway down his gullet. He learned I’m not digestible ’cause I’m metal. But most of you’d be digestible. Like what’s not left of that guy—” The robot pointed a mechanical hand at a skull, a few bones, a rusted gun, and some bits of armor left piled in a shaft of moonlight across the chamber.
“Where is this Thresher now?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it could be outside the cavern—it goes down into the dirt and comes up outside and eats people and things out there. It eats dirt too if it has something tasty and disgusting in it. If you want to see the Thresher, we could sing and dance while we wait for it, if you want. Everyone sing: I gotta program that—”
“Cut that shit out. You think it’s not here now, right? Okay, I’m leaving, before it comes back.”
Mordecai started across the dirt ground of the cavern chamber.
The robot chirped up. “I didn’t say the Thresher wasn’t here! I said it might be outside. But come to think of it, I do think I feel its vibration in the floor, and is that a tentacle over there near your foot? Oh, dear.”
Mordecai turned in time to see a tentacle whip up from the dirt, and the tentacle stared at him: the gray and yellow tentacle had an eye on it partway down its sinuous, barbed length. It was a black, shining eye but clearly an eye. Then the tentacle slapped toward his leg. He leapt back, just out of reach, hopping awkwardly, remembering being dragged underground by the varkid. And Roland wasn’t there to pull his ass out of the fire this time.
Mordecai tracked the tentacle with his gunsight as it came toward him, the Thresher’s rubbery limb cutting the dirt like a periscope from a subaquatic craft; it was a big, hefty, barbed tentacle, with a sharp black hook on the end, a hook that now slashed up at him.
Mordecai fired the Cobra and hit the tentacle in its eye, cutting the whipping pseudopod right through, as the gun’s boom echoed in the cavern.
“Ooooh, nice shot!” the Claptrap shrilled.
Mordecai thought about turning back to the stone-floored part of the cavern, but he’d come a long way, and this creature was between him and the way out.
The remains of the tentacle darted below, but Mordecai had seen these strange, enigmatic creatures once before and knew there were many tentacles and a voracious body down below. There was only one way to kill it—he had to get that hidden, burrowing head and body to show itself. And the only way to do that was to shoot the—
Tentacles whipped upward suddenly, two of them coming from right and left, as if they were trying to trap him between clapping hands. He saw more eyes glittering on the tentacles, hooks flashing, and he lurched and fell on his back, cursing himself for his clumsiness.
A tentacle twined around his ankle; another poised over him, about to strike. Mordecai fired instinctively, his hands finding a target, and the burst cut the poising tentacle in half. Ichor flew from its severed ends. The other tentacle began to drag him across the dirt . . . and down.
“Hey! Claptrap! Come on over here, grab my arm!”
“Not me, can’t do it. Dakes wants me to stay here and watch for bad lady people, not get pulled under the dirt where my parts can get grit in ’em! That would be contraindicated!”
“I’ll disassemble you with a rusty wrench, you little—” He didn’t get any more out; he had to use every ounce of energy to resist the inexorable pull of that tentacle. He aimed with the gun, balancing it on his knee, his hands shaking, thinking there was a very good chance he was about to blow his own foot off. He had to be precise. The Thresher was pulling harder, and in a moment—
He fired, just one round exactly aimed, barely missing his own ankle, cutting through the tentacle. It spurted fluid, and he was able to pull his leg back and had just managed to scramble to his feet, when the thing’s head burst up from its burrow, dirt spilling off its sides. The Thresher was big, big enough to swallow him whole. It reared over him, and he knew that swallowing him whole was exactly what it had in mind. Its big head, shaped like some sleek aerodynamic vehicle, was silvery-gray trimmed in yellow, with a row of ventlike gill structures, behind which were two large green-black eyes on each side, with a third behind and above them. Its head tapered into a serpentine body, knobbed with yellow spikes; rubbery, finned underparts whipped about as it prepared to lunge for him. Its rubbery mouth gaped . . .
There was a message in the green-black glitter of its eyes: I hunger . . . I hunger for you!
Mordecai’s mouth was dry, but years on Pandora had formed his reflexes. Another man would have been paralyzed with horror, but Mordecai was already firing. He directed three bursts of the Cobra combat rifle into those big vulnerable eyes.
The Thresher squealed in agony, thrashed, spurting red and green fluid. Mordecai backpedaled, just out of the reach of its death throes.
Then it sank, revolving slowly, into the dirt . . . and in a few moments was gone from sight.
“I wonder if you killed it,” the Claptrap chattered. “I wonder, I wonder if you killed, killed, killed it, that could make a good song. I wonder wonder if you—”
Mordecai turned furiously to the Claptrap. “You! You’d better do your job for those people. Because you’re useless to me. You don’t do your job, and I’ll spend a long, leisurely night taking you apart!”
The Claptrap spun about and jigged away, muttering bitterly to itself.
/> Mordecai stepped gingerly out onto the dirt, waited, then rushed across it, to the stone on the other side. A few moments more, and he’d reached the egress, the mouth of the cave that led out to the canyon.
He made his way to the opening, stood there smelling the night air outside—and turned to see two Psychos standing beside a red outrider, guns in hand, talking, about ten paces to his right. They wore Gynella’s livery. There could be a lot more of them around. If he killed these two, he could attract half of Gynella’s army there . . .
They hadn’t seen him yet. But they would. Unless he went back through the cave, and the mine, to the settlement.
No. Roland would laugh at him if he went back.
Mordecai waited in the shadows, listening.
It was the edge of dawn, and Roland had just finished eating a meager breakfast, when the first assault came.
The moon had slipped quietly away, and the sky was going from black silk to gun metal as day stalked them like a creeping skag.
There were fifty miners in the camp, most of them men; there were twelve women and five children. That was the whole settlement. And all the men but the guards on the watchtowers were gathered around the dying fire in the barrel, eating hot gruel, drinking stimutea, or cleaning their weapons.
Roland was just picking up his combat rifle when he heard a shout from a watchtower: “Some of them are coming closer!”
Dakes shouted orders, and three miners rushed to man the mortars. Quick instructions came on range and angle, and the middle mortar, set up directly behind the gate, fired with a throaty cough. The shell rose at a steep angle, reaching its apex and visibly tipping, falling on the other side of the gate. Roland heard a triumphant shout as he headed toward the nearest tower.
“Got two of ’em! But there’s more, some kinda weapon set up!”
Then came an odd sound—a twang, a whistling. He figured that was the catapult, heaving boulders. He hoped they would waste the boulders on the wall. Besides being steel, it was protected by an energy shield—a series of them, really. Not very strong shields—they wouldn’t stand up to a pounding for too long.
Dakes and other miners, including Glory, fired out through the horizontal rifle slits in the walls. The metal barricade clanged and racketed with bullet impacts from the army outside.
Then Roland heard a cackling shriek from above. He looked up to see a Psycho Midget hurtling through the sky, flying like a creature of mythology, without aircraft, without wings; it had been simply hurled over the wall by a catapult and the little loon was arcing down, now—right at Roland.
The Psycho Midget had lost his “vault mask” in the air, and his deformed face was grinning, all clownlike, protruding tongue fibrillating with the rush of air as the mad bandit got closer and closer, yodeling as it came, angling head downward to crash into—
—into the ground just behind Roland as he simply stepped nimbly out of the way.
Roland expected to hear a horrible splat, but the Psycho Midget had an energy shield, strong enough to withstand the impact, and the malformed bandit bounced in a flash of sparkling energy and hit the ground at an angle like a skipping rock, skidding on the glowing purple resistance of the shield, which fluttered out just as the Midget crashed headfirst into the rusty old metal barrel used for a central campfire.
The Psycho Midget’s momentum punched his head and shoulders through the thin corroded metal, and he screamed as his head was thrust into burning coals.
Dakes took pity on the Psycho and shot him—just as another twang and whistle announced another one catapulting into the camp.
Gynella’s men had rethought their catapulting. This time the Psycho Midget came over the wall feetfirst, hurtling down to Roland’s left, the Midget’s field crackling as the little lunatic hit. The shirtless bandit bounced a little, fell flat on his back, spun like an overturned turtle on its shell, then scrambled to his feet and rushed toward the nearest miner, brandishing a hatchet and shouting, “It’s time to paint this body with blood!” The stunted Psycho was still wearing its full white and black vault mask, complete with Mohawk-style fin across the cranium and luminous blue eyepieces.
The miner was Glory’s friend, Lucky. He seemed stunned by the shrieking, glowing-eyed, masked apparition charging him.
Lucky fumbled at his gun and backed away, but the Psycho Midget was closing fast, the blade of the hatchet gleaming.
Roland was already tracking the Psycho Midget with his sights, and he could see the bandit’s shield was weak, flickering out near his head. He fired and sent a burst right through the side of the stunted madman’s skull. The Midget fell dead at Lucky’s feet.
Lucky stared at the corpse, then gaped up at Roland. He closed his mouth and nodded his thanks, then ran to reinforce the guards at the front wall.
He’s a good kid at heart, Roland thought.
Another twang, another whistle, a burbling shriek as a third Psycho Midget came down, and this time a fourth was flung over the wall, from the back of the settlement—they were coming from two directions, babbling miniature madmen with axes, hurtling through the air, arms and legs waving, screaming for blood.
A group of miners were arguing about a possible sortie to destroy the catapults, and the fourth Psycho Midget dropped into their midst, hacking wildly with his hatchet as he came down.
Blood splashed with his arrival; men screamed; bits of skull flew.
Then the survivors, most of the men in that group, closed around the Psycho Midget and began using their jackhammers on him.
The Midget’s shield didn’t last long. Neither did his mask, his face, or his spine.
Roland saw all this as he ran up the stairs to a watchtower on the northwestern corner of the settlement’s walls. The stairs quaked under him as a round from a rocket launcher struck the front gate. The gate held, the shield shimmering, sparking, but not giving in entirely. It was a heavy steel gate, and it’d take quite a few rounds to blast it down even without the shield. He got to the watchtower, where he found two bodies. Their heads were shot neatly through.
Recognizing the work of snipers, he ducked quickly down—and not a moment too soon. A bullet meant for his head smacked off the ceiling of the watchtower. That meant that at least one of the settlement’s external shields had failed.
There was no point in exposing himself with a sniper targeting the watchtower. But how was he going to hit Gynella’s Knife Legion where it most hurt?
Another twang, another whistle, another gibbering shriek, and another Psycho Midget came flying over the wall into the defenders. A man yelped as a well-placed hatchet clove his head. Guns boomed. The Midget giggled and shouted imprecations. Another man screamed.
Keeping low, Roland looked down the stairway in time to see a mob of miners tear the Psycho Midget to pieces.
He looked away. It’d been a long time—a time in the distant past for him, on another planet—since he’d been in a fight this big, in war-scale combat. Fighting skags and bandits on Pandora was one thing—getting caught up in the ugliness of war, that was another. Still, Roland was committed—for the moment.
Another twang, a whistle, and a defiant screech from a descending Midget.
How many damn Midgets, Roland wondered, did they have for ammunition out there?
It was pretty obvious what he had to do.
He descended the stairs and shouted to Gong when he got to the bottom. “Hey, pal, can you drive an outrunner?”
Gong looked up from the rifle slit in the wall; his grin revealed his sharpened, fanglike teeth. “Better than you ever did!”
“Okay, you up for a sortie? We’ll make it quick and get back in. Set some guys on the door to let us in and out. I’ll be on the outrunner turret. What do you say?”
“Let’s go!”
Just then, another Psycho Midget came flying over the wall at the back of the settlement, at a fairly low, oblique angle that took him over most of the settlement, coming down close to the front gate.
&nbs
p; “Crap, look at that!” Roland said, as the Midget bounced in his energy field, rolled, then came up on his feet and scurried between the miners who tried to take him down, dodging left and right, heading for the gate. “I was afraid they’d try that. He’s trying to get to the control box. He’s gonna open the gate!”
Gong ran after the Psycho Midget, Roland at his heels. The Midget was well ahead of them, using a small electronic device in his hand to send activation sparks into the control box for the gate. The gate shuddered and began to move slowly open.
Beyond it came an answering roar of murderous glee from Gynella’s horde.
The riflemen at the slits fired furiously. But the Psycho soldiers came, a wave of them rolling toward the opening gate.
“The fire!” Dakes shouted.
A miner fired an Eridian rifle through a slit, hitting the swath of ground impregnated with incendiary fluid, igniting it. A wall of blue and yellow fire roared up around the settlement, and the first phalanx of Psychos was caught in its licking flames. Psycho soldiers screamed and writhed, running in random directions. But the flames quickly fluttered down, turning to smoke, and more Psycho soldiers came, leaping through.
Then Gong reached the Psycho Midget, grabbed him by the ankles, jerked the little lunatic off his feet, and, the muscles in Gong’s broad shoulders standing out, swung him in a rapid arc, smashing the stunted Psycho’s head open on the metal wall.
Roland was trying to figure out how to operate the box; then he spotted the instrument the Psycho Midget had dropped. He picked it up, activated it, and the box responded—the gate began to close.
It shivered shut . . .
But not before six Psychos, all in vault masks, including a Badass who was on fire from the defensive wall of flame, came roaring in, firing their weapons, swinging glowing axes. The one-armed Badass swung an enormous energy-charged battle axe with his single, oversized arm—he didn’t seem to notice or care that he was on fire, that his skin was bubbling and charring even as he knocked the brains from an onrushing miner.
