by Frank Lauria
Fry looked up. It was an earthen funnel—the center of a pinnacle.
They’re hollow, she thought with a measure of surprise. Like silos.
CLICK . . . CLICK . . .
The sound froze her heartbeat.
CLICK . . . CLICK . . . CLICK . . .
Slowly, Fry turned toward the sound. There’s something here, she realized.
Something rustled just beyond the cusp of light from the funnel. Something unfolding . . . Fry’s blood turned to ice. Soundlessly she began backtracking along her chain.
But as she turned, a shadow moved across the exit.
It stopped her dead. She crouched down, and her hand brushed something moist. She picked it up and angled it toward the light. It was Zeke’s boot.
And part of Zeke was still in it.
CLICKETY-CLICK . . . CLICKETY-CLICK . . .
As the sound rose the entire chamber came alive around her. Shadows unfurled like looming squid, skulking around the perimeter of light, circling . . .
A lightning-fast strike speared Zeke’s boot right out of her hand!
Fry made her move. She rolled back into the shaft of light and jumped. Her fingers found purchase on the side of the pinnacle, and her toe caught a rock spur. Driven by naked terror Fry braced her back against one wall, her feet against the other, and started inching up to the open light.
Halfway up, her safety chain went tight. Fry pulled, but the chain wouldn’t budge. Is it caught on something? Fry wondered. Or did something catch it? Like Zeke’s boot.
Either way it was cause for panic. Fry started pounding the earthen wall.
“Here!” she shouted. “I’m in HERE! HERE!”
CLICKETY-CLICK, came the answer.
Suddenly her panic disintegrated into raw terror.
Something tugged at her chain from below.
Wildly, Fry kicked and clawed at the earthen walls, trying to gouge out footholds.
“I’M OVER HERE . . . IN HERE . . .” she cried. Then her voice turned to stone.
The weight on her chain was stronger now, pulling her down. Fry’s hold began slipping, dragging her closer to the madly clicking lair below. Frantically she tried to jettison her belt but couldn’t brace herself. Her feet scrambled like a rat in a treadmill as the chain drew her back to the rustling horror.
Audrey felt Fry’s safety chain tighten. At the same moment a faint echo drifted up from the grave.
“Did you hear . . . ?” she hissed, falling to her knees. The others dropped down beside her, their heads suspended over the grave. They heard nothing.
Then the chain began to snake through their hands . . .
Fry managed to find a precarious hold, halfway up the funnel. But the chain kept her from making it to the open air. Her breath came in shivering gulps and her muscles were cramping in the stifling space. She looked up at the blank patch of sky, trying to blot out the gibbering terror below. But all she saw were Zeke’s ravaged entrails. The chain pulled harder, as if more hands were at work, and she began to slide.
Desperately her fingers raked the earthen wall, but she kept sliding down. Inch by frantic inch she was being dragged into hell.
Something exploded near her head! Fry screamed as the wall crumbled and dark figures loomed over her. Vision blurred by the sudden daylight, Fry made out faces. Human faces.
She recognized Shazza as she broke through the wall with a pickax, and saw Imam reach inside for her. Johns appeared beside him, and the two men hauled Fry into the open air.
“We got you . . .” Johns huffed as he pulled her up. “It’s okay . . . it’s okay. We got you now.”
Fry realized she was still yelling. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw Imam’s concerned expression. He peered at her through his spectacles.
“The child heard you before any of us could even—”
Shazza cut in front of Imam. “Did you find him?” she pleaded, face ragged with grief. “You find Zeke?”
Fry’s brain reeled at the memory. “. . . Wasn’t Riddick,” she panted, “. . . it was . . . it was . . .” She grabbed Shazza’s mouthpiece and took a long hit of oxygen. “Goddamn that was stupid . . . but wasn’t Riddick,” she rambled breathlessly. “Something else down there that got Zeke and nearly got—”
Without warning she tumbled back inside the pinnacle. Something still had the chain. Something very strong.
The others grabbed her flailing limbs, preventing her fall. It became an eerie tug of war between the human hands above and the unseen alien “hands” below. And the humans were losing.
First Audrey lost her grip, then Fry’s ankle slipped out of Shazza’s sweaty palms. Only Johns and Imam kept her from falling completely through. Then Imam let go. Too frightened to scream Fry braced for the final drop.
Suddenly the chain dragging Fry down broke away. She opened her eyes and saw Imam bending over her with a knife. He had cut through her belt.
Sobbing hysterically, Fry crawled to the safety of flat, hard ground.
The survivors were on a mission. They went about their business with military precision, packing O2 units, liquor, umbrellas, weapons, canned delicacies, the Koran—whatever qualified as essential.
Imam helped Fry pull a power cell from the ship’s battery bay. The cell’s lead exterior made it extremely heavy. They managed to slide it out but weren’t strong enough to keep the unit from hitting the metal deck. The fall put a dent in the soft lead lining. Fry prayed it wasn’t damaged.
“One is all?” Imam asked.
She glanced at the heavily loaded sled outside. “For now.”
As Audrey helped Paris carry a small chest of food and whiskey, she paused. Paris started to speak, then changed his mind when he saw the rapt concentration on the little girl’s face. She was listening to something.
Audrey lifted her goggles and turned toward the pinnacle hills as the strange whispering echoes drifted in the wind . . .
Johns went to his locker to take care of his firepower. He dug out a box of blue-metal shotgun shells and put them aside, rummaging in his drawer until he found a red shell. The red boy was his own special blast, Johns reflected. With great care he tucked the red shell into a secure pocket.
As he left the locker he racked the blue shells into his shotgun and cocked the power grid. Then he ambled over to Riddick’s quarters.
The prisoner was where Johns had left him, chained in a dark corner of the bulkhead. Riddick was crouched down, eyes shut, but he seemed to feel Johns’ shadow fall over him. Slowly he lifted his head and smiled.
“Found somethin’ worse than me, huh?”
“We’re movin’.” Johns hefted his weapon. “And I’m just wonderin’ if I shouldn’t lighten the load right now.”
Riddick got to his feet. His eyes opened slightly and fixed on Johns.
Johns pointed the shotgun at Riddick’s head.
“Woof, woof,” Riddick said softly.
Johns pulled the trigger.
The flat magnetic pulse exploded in the cramped space. Ion fumes hung in the stale air as Johns peered at Riddick’s fallen body. A moment later Riddick stirred.
Johns watched him get to his feet. The shotgun had discharged past his head and shattered his wrist chains. “Want you to remember this moment, Riddick,” Johns said. He pointed his weapon at the smoking gash in the metal wall. “The way it coulda gone—and didn’t.”
Riddick fingered his ear. “Say that again? Blast made me slightly deaf.”
“Here’s the deal,” Johns snapped, bringing the weapon back. “You work without the chains, without the bit—without the shivs. You help us get off this rock . . .”
“For what?” Riddick snorted. “The honor of goin’ back to some asshole of a cell?”
Johns lowered the shotgun. “Truth is, Riddick, I’m tired of bumpin’ titties all the time. I wanna be rid of you as much as you want to be rid of me.
In the brief silence Riddick calculated the possibilities. The future rearranged itself like cher
ries on a slot machine.
He regarded Johns with a sly, narrow-eyed smile. “You’d cut me loose, boss?”
Johns reached out and offered him the spectrum goggles to seal the deal. “Only if we get out of this alive. And there may be a way.”
Riddick stared at the goggles in Johns’s hand. “My recommendation,” he said quietly, “do me. Don’t take the chance I won’t get shiv-happy on your wannabe ass.” He looked up, eyes gleaming slits. “Ghost me, Johns. Would if I were you.”
Johns kept his hand out. “If you were me, I’d kill us both. C’mon, you wanna sit at the grownup table or not?”
Hesitantly Riddick reached out for the goggles.
In a blurred instant he snatched the shotgun with his other hand—and suddenly Johns was staring into the blank eyes of his own weapon.
“Want you to remember this moment,” Riddick mocked. He pumped the shotgun, spitting blue shells over Johns’ chest. Then he took the goggles and walked away, tossing the empty weapon aside as he headed for daylight.
The blue sun was lowering, casting purple and indigo shadows across the harsh landscape. Far ahead, the edge of the desert seemed to be on fire, as the yellow and red suns rose above the horizon. The merging light turned the sky green, amplifying the nightmarish urgency of their exodus.
The pilgrims marched stolidly, no longer singing. Fry and Imam had fixed up a sling for the power cell and were carrying it like a baby in a hammock. Behind them Riddick was dragging Zeke’s heavily loaded sled.
From pycho-beast, to beast of burden, Riddick noted ruefully. He’d traded his wrist chains for shoulder chains. But now that he could see again, anything might happen.
Huffing from the unfamiliar exertion, Paris left Shazza and little Audrey to carry the food chest while he hurried to catch up to Johns. “So just like that,” he whined. “Wave your little wand and he’s one of us now.”
Johns shrugged. “Didn’t say that. But this way I don’t have to worry about failin’ asleep and not wakin’ up.”
“Well, I feel we owe Mr. Riddick amends,” Imam reminded.
Shazza stiffened. “Oh right. Let’s all line up and beg his forgiveness. Right you are.” But as she strode ahead, dragging Audrey along, Shazza felt a pang of guilt.
“At least give the man some oxygen,” Imam said.
They all glanced back at the goggled figure towing the heavy sled in the relentless heat.
“He’s happy just bein’ vertical,” Johns said curtly. “Leave him be.”
“So I can talk to him now?” Audrey inquired sweetly.
“No!” Johns, Shazza, Fry and Imam said in unison.
Feeling weak, Paris dropped one of his wine bottles. Trailing just behind, Riddick scooped it up. Paris stopped and held out his hand.
“Paris P. Ogilvie. Antiquities dealer, entrepreneur.”
Riddick solemnly shook his hand. “Richard B. Riddick. Escaped convict, murderer.” He lifted the wine bottle, cracked the neck against the sled, and took a long satisfied swallow.
Heart pumping, Paris scurried ahead to join the others. “You know,” he declared loudly. “If I owned hell, and this planet . . . I believe I’d rent out this planet and live in hell!”
No one answered. They were all staring at the row of pinnacles high above them.
Fry shivered. Then she heard it.
CLICKETY-CLICK.
The sound pierced her belly like an icy spear. Fear flooded her limbs and she stopped. The others did the same.
CLICKETY-CLICK.
Fry’s neck hairs rose. Within seconds, the sound had faded.
The group started moving again, a little faster.
CLICKETY-CLICKETY-CLICK.
Were they being stalked? Fry wondered anxiously. Trying to stay calm, Fry moved backward trying to trace the direction of the sound.
Then she spotted them.
The sound was coming from the prayer beads dangling from Rashad’s belt. Whenever the young pilgrim moved, the strings clacked together.
Fry’s sense of relief evaporated when they reached the space skiff. The craft seemed much older than she remembered. As if it had flown a few war missions in their absence. But at the moment the battered skiff didn’t look as if it would ever fly again.
Paris examined the craft and shook his head. “I mean . . . usually I can appreciate antiques, but, uh, this . . .”
Johns was more direct. “Little ratty-ass.”
Fry struggled to get the power cell aboard the skiff. “Nothing we can’t repair,” she assured. “So long as the electrical adapts.” But she was still worried about the dented cell.
“Not a star-jumper,” Shazza observed.
“Doesn’t need to be,” Riddick told her. “Use this to get back up to the Sol Track shipping lanes. Stick out a thumb. You’ll get picked up.” He turned to Fry. “Right?”
Fry glanced from Riddick to Johns. How does he know that? she wondered. Fry turned her attention to the leaden power cell. “Little help here?”
Imam and Fry muscled the cell onto the ship, but they were finding it difficult. Riddick moved to lend a hand but Johns blocked the door. He didn’t want Riddick inside the ship. The bastard might get funny ideas.
“Check those containers over there,” Johns suggested. “See what we got to patch wings with.”
Riddick didn’t argue. His time would come real soon now.
The young pilgrims took it upon themselves to repair the moisture recovery unit. They attacked the project with religious fervor, knowing Allah had led them to the task. And in a universe of infinite possibilities, they were mathematically correct. It was, after all, a totally random collision of faith and necessity.
A hundred yards away, God was a minor part of the equation as Imam helped Fry adapt the power cell to the skiff’s outdated electrical system. Fry locked the cell in place and reached for the ON handle. Without so much as a prayer she pulled it down.
A long minute later the console flickered and went dark. Then the ship’s interior lit up in sequence, like a holiday billboard.
“Praise Allah,” Imam intoned. But he was premature.
“Okay, this should buy us a Sys-Check,” Fry reported. “But we’ll need more cells.”
“How many?” Johns asked.
“Fifteen six-gigs here . . .” Fry calculated. “Ninety gigs total . . . other ship carries twenty-gig cells, so . . . five. Five total to launch.”
“Fifty kilos each, huh?”
It wasn’t a question. Fry knew as well as Johns did it would take them another grueling day’s march to transport the cells.
“Old Sand Cat outside,” Shazza offered. “See if I can’t get it up and chuggin’.”
Fry grinned, bolstered by Shazza’s suggestion. The Sand Cat would make the whole thing doable. The vehicle was designed to haul mining samples over alien terrain and had proven to be an intergalactic workhorse.
“Do it,” Johns said emphatically. “And if you need an extra hand, just tap our problem child out there.” But as Johns glanced out the window, his air of certainty disintegrated.
“Where’s Riddick?” Johns rasped, voice tight.
Nobody answered . . .
Riddick was walking the ghost town. He found dead gardens . . . upended chairs and furniture . . . broken skylights . . . scattered utensils. All signs of an untimely bug-out, he speculated, examining a spoon through his dark goggles.
A few yards away Audrey and the young pilgrim, Ali, stood watching him. Audrey was wearing her makeshift goggles in homage to her hero, and Ali had shaved his head. Both waited for their outlaw guru to uncover some alien secret.
But Riddick remained mystified by what he found. He approached the entrance to a tall, windowless structure. The metal door was crusted with rust and dirt. Locked. Moving around the side of the building Riddick found a small, filthy window. He rubbed away some dirt and peered inside. A shadow seemed to shrink across the wall.
Riddick lifted his goggles and took another look. Hi
s watery pupils saw broad details of the interior; shelves, crates, and a tall, metallic shaft in the center of the dark room. Everything was still.
Covering his eyes, Riddick moved back to the entrance. He had only taken a few steps when he noticed a metallic glint on the ground. He crouched down and raked the dirt with his fingers. He excavated a pair of broken eyeglasses, a shattered handlight, and a child’s toy robot.
Watching from a short distance away, Audrey and Ali exchanged excited glances. Their leader had discovered something.
Riddick rubbed the robot’s solar panel clean. The toy’s language program warbled to life. “. . . to all intruders. I am the guardian of this land. I will protect my masters at all cost. Death to all intruders.”
As Riddick stood up he saw a narrow door that was obscured by years of windblown dust. He moved closer. The door was chained. There was a panel beside the door. Riddick brushed away the caked dirt. It was a sign that read CORING ROOM.
A familiar rasp cut through the quiet. “You’re missin’ the party, c’mon.”
Riddick didn’t bother to look. He knew it was Johns, keeping him on a short leash. He backed away from the door and turned. Johns was stationed a few yards away, his shotgun at high port. The lawman grinned.
Suddenly, Riddick whirled and kicked out hard against the door. “Missin’ the party, c’mon,” he mimicked.
A dim chorus of cheering voices floated up from the main building.
Ignoring Johns, Riddick marched back in the direction of the cheers. Johns fell into step behind him, shotgun on his shoulder.
Audrey crawled out of her hiding place. She had taken refuge in a trash bin when Johns appeared. “Missin’ the party, c’mon,” she called out to Ali.
Receiving no answer, Audrey adjusted her goggles and started after Riddick.
Ali watched her go, with mixed feelings. He liked his new friend, but she was after all, a girl. Exploring alien worlds was man’s work, Ali thought loftily as he approached the door Riddick had struck. Still locked tight. Ali moved around and peered through the small window. The metal door was chained shut from the inside.
But Riddick’s kick had bent the door, making a small opening, barely large enough for Ali to squeeze through. Wait until the others heard about his adventure, Ali gloated, crawling inside the dark, deserted room. Maybe then they’d start treating him like a man, instead of a boy.
