“I’m starting to wonder if I saw them at all last night,” said Fordice, squatting on the ground. “But they left sign, and here’s some of their waste, so they were here, all right. I guess they went down the hill, using a different path. Now, Keitan, show me where this terminal is.”
Keitan was careful and deliberate (after all, the Wolfies might still be in the area), but led Fordice to the hidden cubbyhole that housed the terminal. Fordice wasted no time checking in.
YOU ARE EXACTLY WHERE I WANT YOU.
“I have data from the journey,” typed Fordice.
ENTER DATA LATER. OBSERVATIONS URGENT.
“We encountered Wolfie bands, one of whom was right outside this terminal housing.”
THEY HAVE DESCENDED TO THE FLOOR ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS BULKHEAD. YOU MUST FOLLOW THEM. PLEASE OBSERVE THE FOLLOWING SIGNS:
- ANY INDICATION OF NON-HUMAN, NON-WOLFIE LIFE
- ANY CHANGE IN THE MACHINERY ON THE FLOOR OF THE NEXT COMPARTMENT
- ANY OTHER ITEM YOU THINK WOULD INTEREST ME.
DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?
“I have the son of a local elder. May he accompany me?”
NO. TELL HIM TO RETURN TO THE VILLAGE.
“Understood. Fordice out.”
The lights dimmed on the console, and with it, the spirit of adventure on the face of Keitan.
Fordice sat in the cubbyhole. “Sorry, Keitan.”
“Who was that?”
“One of the artificial intelligences that continue to operate this place.”
Keitan appeared to accept the answer, but Fordice knew better.
“I know you don’t understand it. It took me ten years before I was ready to believe what all of this was,” Fordice said, waving his arm around the compartment. “Your father knows. Let him teach you. Believe in what he says. One day, you or your descendants will have to make crucial decisions about the fate of everyone on board this ship.”
“I do not understand, Minstrel.”
“I know you don’t, Keitan. But don’t worry, your father has years yet. Listen to him. Believe him. That is all you must do.”
“Will you be back?” asked Keitan.
“Probably not. I almost never go back home the same way. That’s how Wolfies trap you.” Humans, too.
“When must I go?”
“Now, Keitan.”
***
Fordice and Keitan returned to their previous evening’s bivouac and retrieved their bedrolls. Fordice ensured that Keitan went back downhill towards his village before resuming the climb up to the cubbyhole that held the working terminal. There, he spent some time with the AI, getting more specifics on the reconnaissance mission before disconnecting. Stashing his bedroll in the small compartment, he left, found a way over the bulkhead, and descended a series of metal ladders and enclosed stairwells to the floor of the other compartment.
Descending the ladders was bad enough. He felt like a moving target in a hatchet-throwing competition. Though no projectile came his way, he was convinced that he was under at least one pair of Wolfie eyes. The enclosed stairwells were worse, with the wild scent of Wolfie all around, although there were none to be seen.
Fordice peered out of the final metal wall before entering the wide open floor of the compartment. Nothing. He darted out of the stairwell and ran around the enclosing metal sheath surrounding the stairs, aiming to place the bulk of the stairs between himself and the enormous empty space beyond. Nothing made a sound as his soft leather moccasins rounded the enclosing walls. He rounded the last corner.
Right into the pack of Wolfies.
***
Fordice had endured some nasty surprises in his life. Times when the adrenaline was pumping into his system so hard he had cramps in the glands above the kidneys. This had to rank right up there with the worst of them.
He stared at the open mouths of the Wolfie band, the glistening teeth. Eyes staring at death, claws extended, ready to rend. Women, old men, young children—all had the same basic look. They were ready to fight, ready to kill.
Instead, they were the ones who were killed. Killed, then stacked here, out of sight, for some unfathomable purpose. Once Fordice checked every body, was sure of the complete absence of life in the band of thirty or so, he looked closer at the corpses.
Each one of them had a neat, perfect, dot in the center of their forehead, directly through the brow. The dot was surrounded with a charred circle. Some were larger than others, as if the Wolfie was moving when whatever drilled those holes found it. For the Minstrel, this efficient, almost bloodless killing was more horrifying than if he found a pile of dismembered and slashed Wolfies.
It helped, in a perverse way, for the adrenaline was draining from his body, and this shot of horror helped buffer the fall from full alert back to normal. This strange method of dying was unknown to Fordice, and it certainly counted as something the AI wanted him to report.
Fordice needed to see if there was anything out there, waiting to drill a hole in his head. Maybe his stealthy descent went unnoticed, or whatever was on guard here thought the band of Wolfies was it. In any case, he should slide slowly and carefully away from the stairwell, reasoning that as a way into this compartment, it was being watched. He peered out from his position at the rear corner of the stairwell. A series of oblong shapes lined the walls, their back walls not quite touching the bulkhead. Fordice slowly eased his way over to the back of the first one, and found that he could fit between the two metal surfaces. He slowly made his way down the row of oblong box-like structures until he found a place where he could peer between a couple of them, almost like a small window in a wall. He settled into his observation spot and waited.
The hours trickled slowly by. Fordice knew better than to watch continuously, as that would tire his eyes and his brain, and he would miss a small but vital movement. He practiced peripheral observation, picking out likely hiding spots in the vast cavern before him. He then looked at something else, but paid attention to changes in his peripheral vision. Each time he thought he detected movement, he looked directly at the suspicious spot, but by the time he had, the movement, if there really was any, had stopped. He smiled inwardly. Ebel, my sniper instructor, would be pleased. Thank you, old man.
Nothing was within bowshot, and definitely nothing was within knife-throwing distance, so Fordice didn’t even try to ready his weapons. He waited and watched. Occasionally, he would sip at his canteen. A piece of jerky kept his mouth and stomach occupied as the long hours trickled past.
After a day and a half, his eyes alerted him to movement again. This time, there was no mistake. Something completely beyond his experience was happening. Creatures he had never seen before were operating a wheeled engine of some kind, towing a wagon. They came across the floor in complete silence, the motor making no sound beyond that of a thin whine. They drove right up to the stairwell, loaded all of the Wolfie bodies into the wagon, and drove away.
Fordice was in instant motion. He slipped down the alley between the oblongs and the bulkhead, back towards the stairwell. Racing around it, he found an identical row of oblong boxes with a space in the back through which he could wriggle. He continued to move forward as fast as he could. He reasoned that while the wheeled cart was in motion, any watchers would not notice him moving as well. He made his way quickly down the back alley of the deck until he found himself stopped by a transverse bulkhead.
Fordice stopped and took stock. Silence reigned once more throughout the great compartment. The wheeled cart had vanished, and the stink of dead Wolfie was beginning to fade. He touched the transverse bulkhead, which quivered beneath his fingers. That was odd—none of the metal walls ever did that. He noticed that the oblongs were separated from the transverse bulkhead as well, and slowly made his way along the right-angled wall. Up ahead, a large opening appeared in the bulkhead, but the oblongs stopped well short of the opening. But as he got to within twenty meters of the large opening, he noticed an irregularity in the wall.
He felt all along it in the gloom, and encountered a handle. Praying that it was a mere mechanical lock instead of a motorized electrical one, he turned the handle slowly. A click and a low creak heralded the opening of a man-sized door in the wall. Easing it open just far enough to see through, Fordice needed no peripheral observation to see what was going on.
Unearthly creatures were at work inside this compartment. Large cables had been strung from a huge ovoid to machinery of all kind scattered throughout the compartment. This must be the nonhuman, non-Wolfie life that the AI had alluded to. This had to be reported back immediately. Fordice pulled the door closed once more and latched it. He wriggled his way back to part where the oblongs stopped, twenty meters before the stairwell.
Fordice stopped and thought. While he did so, he had that strange feeling again, the certainty that he was being watched. This time, he knew it was not by anything human. He had two choices: stay behind the last oblong, where he would eventually be discovered, or make a mad dash to the stairwell and hope to make it despite the hole-burner that did in the Wolfies.
Stay or go? He had to report the information he had seen, but running those last twenty meters seemed to be suicide, and that wouldn’t accomplish the mission. He dithered, his head aching with the strain of listening for the slightest sounds. He could hear the pulse of blood in his ears, the tiny, never-ending whine from a concussion he had suffered a couple of years ago, the low-grade gurgling from the various liquids and gasses in his digestive system. The whining, particularly, seemed to get louder the more he concentrated on trying to hear.
The whine! The creatures in the cart were back!
Fordice raced to the corner of one of the oblongs, and peered out. The cart was indeed back, circling the floor of the compartment, whizzing past the stairwell, and heading off towards the far wall. Fordice used its retreat to cover his own, running in zigzags towards the staircase. He had just made it past the metal walls when a rain of sparks were blasted off the edge of the wall.
He had been seen!
He was tempted to race up the stairwell, but that would tire him out rapidly. Instead, he ran up the first two flights, then settled down to a killing pace that he could sustain for hours. He made it up about a third of the way, when the ladder section intervened. He dreaded this, since he was completely exposed to whatever was on the compartment floor. He didn’t hesitate, since he could hear something following him up the stairs.
He ran to the first ladder and started to climb. The aim of the guards was far worse on the ladders and it was on the fixed doorway at ground level. Nevertheless, Fordice varied his speed and orientation, sometimes climbing the back of the ladders, sometimes the front, once even sliding down halfway, all while foiling their shots. Suddenly the shooting stopped and Fordice looked down to see why.
He saw the face of a nightmare looking back at him.
He climbed ever faster. Despite the significant difference in body type, the aliens were about as adept on the stairs and ladders as he was, but he was able to maintain his lead from his pursuers. He was only about five levels from the top when he discovered the fatal problem in his plan.
What was he going to do at the top?
Sure, he had his weapons, but something that could blast sparks from hard metal was not something he could defeat with a bow, arrows, and throwing steels. He needed something else. Worse, he was leading the aliens into a big compartment of humans, now freshly de-Wolfie’d for the first time in generations. These nightmares had no problem burning holes in Wolfie skulls, what he was doing was bringing in an enemy worse than any Wolfie.
Get to the cubby, ask the AI. It will know what to do.
***
He got to the top of the ladder and quickly ducked into the passageway between the bulkheads. Rounding the corner on his side of the great wall, he stopped dead. He could not move. He found he could talk, though.
“Stop fooling around, BlyerLynn! Let me go!”
He found he could move again, and raced around the passageway, almost colliding with the elfin woman.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I was summoned by a dream. And I brought my device.”
“So I see. Wait here. Flash the first thing that comes the same way I did.”
He raced into the cubbyhole, hammered on the terminal, and reported the data.
GOOD. GO WITH BLYERLYNN. HER DEVICE WILL KEEP YOU SAFE.
Fordice ran back to where he had left BlyerLynn. She was surrounded by nightmares, still and silent.
***
Fordice examined each one of them in turn. The aliens were so, well, alien. He could not clearly form memories of their appearances. Their weapons were easy to understand, though, and Fordice gathered as many as he could. He did not know the range of BlyerLynn’s device, so he took no chances. He dragged each nightmare to the edge of the staircase and pitched it out over the safety railing. They seemed to come out of the paralysis about halfway down their long fall, but it didn’t matter in the end as they impacted the floor below.
After the last alien was dispatched, Fordice left BlyerLynn on guard at the stairwell and returned to the cubbyhole. This time, with the advantage of time, he reported back in to the AI and received instruction.
“I want to understand. I am to go back into the compartment, find this terminal that you describe, and enter in the commands you have given me.”
YES
“What will they do?”
THE GIANT POD YOU SAW WAS ONE OF THE WARDEN‘S AUXILLIARY ENGINES. THEY ARE TAPPING ITS ENERGY TO POWER THEIR MACHINERY. THESE COMMANDS WILL LIFT THE SHIELDS AROUND THE ENGINE CORE, EXPOSING THEM TO KILLING RADIATION.
“But, won’t I be killed too?”
NO. THE COMMANDS INCLUDE A DELAY FOR YOUR ESCAPE. YOU MUST GET TO THIS LEVEL TO BE SAFE.
“What about those villages on the other side of the metal wall that separates us from the aliens?”
The AI was silent.
“Will they be harmed?”
SOME.
“How many”
KEITAN’S VILLAGE WILL BE DESTROYED BY THE RADIATION. SO WILL BLYERLYNN’S. OTHERS WILL SUFFER LESSER DAMAGE. ALL ALIENS IN THESE COMPARTMENTS WILL BE DESTROYED. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT THEY BE DESTROYED. YOU HAVE SEEN WHAT THEY WILL DO TO THE WOLFIES. THEY TRIED TO KILL YOU. NOW THEY KNOW THERE ARE BOTH WOLFIE AND HUMANS IN THE WARDEN. THEY WILL HUNT YOU ALL DOWN AND KILL YOU.
“So it’s kill some humans to save the rest?”
YES.
“I must think about this.”
I DETECT MOVEMENT IN THE COMPARTMENT BEYOND. PLEASE RECONOITER.
“We’ll talk about this later.”
***
“A cart came and picked up the bodies,” said BlyerLynn. “I think some more are coming up.”
“This day is just packed with good things,” said Fordice. “We have to go down, you and me.”
“Wait, who says?” she demanded.
Fordice brought her up to speed as quickly as he could, for he could hear climbing noises on the stairs.
“Get ready with your device. Any idea how much longer it will work?”
“I have no idea. I know that I have to leave it out in the daylight after using it a lot. Then it’s as good as new.”
“We’ll just have to chance it,” said Fordice. “Let’s move.”
They hustled to the corridor at the top of the stairwell. Fordice had BlyerLynn wait behind him, her device as backup. He used the second alien wave as a way to test out their weaponry. All too soon, the aliens were sporting charred holes in the centers of their cooling foreheads.
“We have to get to the bottom of the stairwell,” said Fordice. “Come with me.”
Leaving the aliens where they fell, the two humans made their way to the floor of the alien compartment. They carefully made their way into the back of the oblong structures, ending up near the door that led into the engine pod.
“Now what?” whispered BlyerLynn.
“Now we wait. See all the aliens? They’re at the peak of their activity. The AI tells me that they will slowly reduce their activity, with a low in about five hours. All we have to do is avoid detection until then.” He stretched out in a blind where he could watch the activity in both compartments while remaining hidden.
“Five hours, eh?” said BlyerLynn.
“Right,” said Fordice. “Let’s exchange life stories, shall we?”
BlyerLynn settled down and leaned her back against the bulkhead separating the two alien compartments. “I’ll go first. You know I am from a long family. Unfortunately, I am the last of the family. I never had children, and now, I am too old to start.”
***
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“No. We’re going to kill all the aliens that threaten us, then screw around with a terminal to change engine shielding to kill the rest of them.”
“How do you know all this?” she asked. “You’re no minstrel, you’re one of those scientist types.”
He laughed quietly. “I’m no scientist. I’ve just been trained by a very patient AI, that’s all. I can repeat the words, even if I am struggling with the ideas. All I know is that when I put in a special sequence of commands, we have fifteen minutes to get up to where we were and stay up there for two days.”
“Why two days?”
“The engine has a shield that keeps radiation from flooding this compartment. What we’re going to do is cause those shields to open up like a set of wings. If we get higher than the wings, and we will, then we’re still shielded. If we don’t, then we get killed by radiation. The aliens won’t know it’s happening, and so they’ll die.”
“And the AI told you to do this, right?”
Fordice nodded. “Yes. Gave me the codes. Told me to travel from my village to here. The aliens are a menace. Sure, they kill Wolfies. But they will kill us, too. We can’t risk that. So they’re going to die.”
BlyerLynn sat back, her face troubled. Fordice looked through his loopholes and froze. He motioned BlyerLynn closer.
“Look, over there, back towards the stairwell.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes. The aliens are going up the stairwell. We’re going to want to go up there, too. Damn. Well, one thing at a time. Come here and watch our backtrail, I have to concentrate on the engine area.”
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