Unreconciled

by W. Michael Gear

  Kalico swallowed hard. From the tone in the woman’s voice, she was clap-trapping serious.

  “We’re going to make it, wife.” Talbot told her in a voice dripping love.

  What was that like? To be loved so completely? Kalico took the moment to wonder—not that she’d ever allowed herself such a fantasy. Still, here, in the evil blackness, she envied Dya Simonov that warm reassurance.

  Up in the lead, Muldare took a deep breath, as if nerving herself as she crawled up and over a hump where the floor rose. “Got another drop ahead,” she said before shining the light back so Kalico could slither across the clammy wet rock in the marine’s wake. Only to find herself perched on a shallow ledge before the tube dropped off into inky depths.

  Kalico reached back, took Dya’s hands, and helped the botanist negotiate the hump. The woman was trembling, her jaw quivering with fear as she swung her feet around to find purchase on the ledge. Then came Talbot, his rifle clattering on the unforgiving stone.

  When Muldare shone her light into the depths, the invertebrates scattered like perverted lice. Skittering this way and that, they hid in cracks, huddled in shadow, and seemed to flow down into the depths.

  “I hate this place.” Briah Muldare’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

  Talbot was staring down into the hole. “Shit on a shoe, but that’s a straight drop.”

  “So, what now?” Kalico asked—felt something drop onto her head. She panicked, clawed with frantic fingers to rip the skittering invertebrate out of her hair. The little beast, legs thrashing, sailed out into Muldare’s light and vanished into the blackness below. Kalico willed every ounce of her courage to get her heartbeat back to normal.

  Pus and ions, I’d give a kilo of rhodium for a drink of water. Give up the whole damn Number One mine to be out of here and back in Port Authority chowing down on Inga’s chili and drinking whiskey.

  Talbot took Muldare’s light, flashed it around the walls of the shaft, and then leaned out, saying, “Bless you, yes!”

  “What?” Kalico craned her neck, trying to see.

  “Got a rope here.” Talbot handed the light back to Muldare, dropped to his knees, and backed over the ledge, feeling his way with his feet.

  “Mark, damn you, you be careful,” Dya cried, leaning forward. “So help me, if you . . .” She couldn’t finish.

  “What makes you so brave?” Muldare asked, trying to hold the light for him.

  Talbot grinned weakly. “I survived four months in the forest. Alone. Every time I figured I was dead, I wasn’t. When I eventually do wind up dead, I’ll know I’ve either just made a really dumb mistake, or that the odds finally caught up with me.” A pause. “Ah, there. Little bit of a foothold here. Don’t mind the invertebrates, they crunch under your boot.”

  “Did you have to say that?” Dya cried, on the verge of tears.

  Talbot lowered himself, feeling for footholds. “Got another one. Ouch. Shit!”

  “What?” Kalico’s heart starting to hammer again.

  “Don’t put your fingers in the crushed invertebrate.” Talbot wiped his hand on his coveralls. “Their guts really burn.”

  We’re all going to die in here.

  Talbot eased himself over the edge. “Okay, got the rope. So, the good news is that someone passed this way before. And better yet, left us the rope. Best of all, the invertebrates haven’t eaten it. The bad news is that while it’s knotted, it’s still just a rope. Means we each have to climb down, one by one.”

  Kalico—seeing Dya shaking and on the verge of tears, and Muldare looking pretty rocky herself—said, “You go first, Mark. Then Dya, Muldare, and I’ll be last.”

  “You’ll have to do it in almost total darkness,” Muldare told her, a worried look in her hazel eyes.

  “So?” Kalico shrugged. “I’ll manage.”

  God, can I lie to myself, or what?

  Screw this being strong for everyone shit. She wanted to drop to her knees and throw up.

  Talbot was already descending the rope. She could hear his clothing rubbing against the stone, the occasional clunk as his rifle butt hit rock. The man’s breath kept coming loud in the cavern. How long? Ten seconds? Twenty?

  “I’m down,” Mark called. “Come on, Dya. Feel with your feet as you lower yourself over the lip. If it feels like a step, it is. Once you grab hold of the rope, use both of your feet to grip the knots.”

  In the flashlight’s glow, Dya’s face was a mask of terror. She tried to swallow. Couldn’t. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes. Who would have thought that rock-solid Dya, woman of steel, would have been afraid of the dark?

  “I can’t.” It came as faint whisper.

  Kalico bent down, placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder. Forced a kindly confidence she didn’t feel into her voice. “You going to let a Corporate bitch like me show you up? Besides, down that rope is the only way back to Su and Damien, Tweet, Tuska, and the rest of the family. Nothing you couldn’t do in the light of day. The only difference is that now you do it in a tunnel.”

  “It’s okay,” Talbot called from the bottom. “Not more than five meters.”

  “I don’t want to die in the dark,” Dya whispered. Her entire body shook, but somehow, looking numb, she swung her feet over the edge. “Something’s here. Feel it? Watching us.”

  Kalico couldn’t help herself, a shiver playing down her arms as she stared at the surrounding black, and damned if she didn’t feel some presence. Cold. Heartless. And malevolent.

  Muldare took Kalico’s hand for stability, leaned out to shine the light as far down as she could to help Dya see.

  Foothold by foothold, the trembling Dya lowered herself, tears streaking down her face. She was below the lip, said, “Got the rope.” Then added, “Fuck me. Here goes.”

  For a moment there was silence, then a yip of fear echoed in the shaft.

  “Dya!” Kalico and Talbot cried in unison.

  “It’s . . . It’s . . . I’m okay. Just . . . Just . . .”

  “Take your time,” Talbot called. “Feel your way.”

  “Shut up!” Dya shrieked. “I’ve been on a rope before.”

  At the terror in the woman’s voice, Kalico closed her eyes.

  She’s going to lose it. She’ll freeze. Won’t be able to move. When her fingers cramp, she’s going to fall.

  And what? Land full on Mark? Leave them both crippled here in the terrible black?

  She glanced sidelong at Muldare, wanted to shout down to Talbot to stay out of the way.

  Oh, sure, and that would really seal Dya’s fate, wouldn’t it?

  “How you doing, wife?” Talbot called up.

  “Okay,” Dya squeaked. “I found the rope. Got my feet on the knot.”

  Kalico sucked her lips, her heart hammering. Come on. You can do it.

  Then came the sound of clothing sliding on rock. The softer sounds were Dya sobbing, struggling. But the sliding on rock continued, getting ever more faint.

  Then, “I . . . I’m slipping! I can’t hold on any . . .” It ended with a shriek. Then a muffled thump.

  “Mark? Dya?” Kalico called, hanging out as far as she could over the edge. All she could hear was whimpering, the sound of someone broken.

  47

  Kalen Tompzen’s words, “Boss, I could handle this,” kept repeating in Dan Wirth’s head as he stalked through the main gate that opened out onto the shuttle field. Fact was, he never liked going out beyond the fence. Somehow, leaving the protective barrier behind with nothing between him and Donovan was like walking down the central avenue buck-assed naked with his prick and balls wagging in the wind.

  Not that being inside Port Authority was all that safe. Since landing on Donovan, he’d spent how many nights huddled in The Jewel while search teams scoured every square inch of town for a man-eating monster? Good old Dube
Dushku had been torn in two and swallowed by a quetzal just on the other side of the wall where Dan hid in his office.

  Yet, here he was, Tompzen’s assurances echoing in his head. Sure, the ex-marine could have hunted Windman down. Made the appropriate example of him. Beat the guy to a pulp, broke an arm, or dislocated a shoulder. Got the message across that a mark didn’t waltz out, leaving The Jewel holding the bag. Not when said mark lost more than five hundred at roulette. The guy wouldn’t have had the chance to skip if Vik Schemenski hadn’t been so busy at the table.

  But Windman had, and now the situation must be dealt with.

  Dan squinted, staring across the shuttle pad. The place where the PA shuttle usually sat lay vacant; the clay was baking under Capella’s hot glare. To the right, just before the seven-tall wall of shipping containers sat an A-7 shuttle from Ashanti. That had to be where Windman, a copilot, would be found.

  In fact, wasn’t that him? The guy lounging on the open loading ramp where it was lowered in the rear?

  Dan took a deep breath and started across the hard red soil. In places hot exhaust had melted it to a glassy texture. In the distance the chime kept rising, almost finding harmony, and falling into that awful discordant and atonal fugue before rising again.

  I could be gone from here.

  Dek Taglioni’s offer hung in his imagination like a desert mirage: alluring, and just out of reach. If only Dan could trust the guy. The opportunity was just too good to be true, but what if it was real? On Donovan, at least he was safe, secure, and alive. But that was where it ended.

  The conundrum just added to Dan’s foul mood: knowing that he wasn’t trapped. That this wasn’t the end of the road. That if he’d just keep his wits, he could be off this rock, back in the game. The real game, where it wasn’t just pissing around with a bunch of broke-dick colonists on a backwater world, but Transluna! Where absolute power awaited anyone with the cunning and moxie to seize it.

  All of which had caused him to give Kalen Tompzen a wink and say, “I’ll take care of the guy.”

  Dan needed to get the hell out of The Jewel, away from the wary gazes his people kept giving him. Damn it, he was desperate for action, any kind of action. And thumping the shit out of copilot Windman was going to be a relief, a way to vent the growing frustration.

  “Don’t kill him,” Allison had warned as Dan had settled his hat on his head and checked his knife.

  Of course I won’t kill him. He’s Ashanti crew.

  But that was part of it, the whole frustrating thing. It was the pissant little rules. Like having to trade a fucking bedroom addition for a scarf. By God’s ugly ass, he was tired of placating a bunch of candy-dicked and self-righteous bastards.

  He grinned, a swell of anticipation rising within as he walked up to the shuttle ramp and called, “Ensign Windman in the flesh! Why, of all the people to encounter. Luck is with me for sure.”

  Windman, who’d been doodling on his tablet looked up. The guy was spacer pale to start with. Now he went two shades whiter. Swallowed hard.

  “Oh, no need to fret,” Dan reassured the rabbit-eyed Windman. “You and I just need to talk.”

  Dan glanced around. “But not here. I mean, anyone could walk by, and you do have a reputation to maintain. So, how about we both saunter over past that shipping container and enjoy a bit of privacy while we figure out our little dilemma.”

  “Uh, I’m not an ensign. Just a copilot.” Windman wobbled unsurely to his feet.

  “Either’s good enough for me.” Dan placed a reassuring hand on the spacer’s bony shoulder. He could feel the guy flinch down to his toes.

  Windman nerved himself. “Listen, I know how it looks. Me slipping out like that. But, uh, hey, you’ve got this reputation. Like, I know I screwed it, shouldn’t have made that last bet. But you need to know that I’ll make it—”

  “Sure you will. That’s what we’re going to discuss. How to make it right. ’Cause I suspect you really don’t have any five hundred siddars hidden away up in that ship, am I right?”

  “Well, no. But when I get back to Solar System, after Ashanti’s been this long in space? I mean, with bonus and time, and being over contract, I’ll have more than enough—”

  “But that’s then. Not to mention in way far off Solar System. We have to talk about now.”

  Dan propelled copilot Windman past the last of the stacked shipping containers. Caught a glance of Pamlico Jones where he ran one of the forklifts toward the Ashanti shuttle. Jones was smart enough to leave matters be that didn’t concern him.

  Behind the towering crates, a couple of big transparent plexiglass boxes—some sort of shipping crates—stood in a haphazard line. No telling what they had been used for. Given the rows of air holes in the tops, whatever had been in them must have been organic.

  Beyond them, it was no more than fifty meters across the ferngrass to the bush. There a low line of aquajade, sucking shrub, claw shrub, and scrubby chabacho trees shimmered in opalescent greens and turquoise. A flock of scarlet fliers fluttered in aerial dance among the branches. The chime grew, louder, wavering in the heat.

  Dan stopped Windman before the transparent crates, the guy’s escape blocked from behind by a low hillock covered by ferngrass.

  “Listen, Mr. Wirth, I really am sorry.” Windman was craning his head, eyes searching for any possible route of escape. It had to be dawning on him that for whatever was about to happen, there would be no witnesses.

  “Sorry is a good word, but it doesn’t have any value. Get my point? I could say, ‘I forgive you’ but it wouldn’t mean anything either. Now, let’s say you have five hundred SDRs in that pouch on your belt. You hand that over, and we’re all square. Even. The accounts balance. But you don’t have five hundred, and sorry’s just a word. No more than an exhalation of air.”

  Windman’s mouth must have gone dry because it took him three tries to swallow. A growing terror turned his quivering eyes glassy. “Wha . . . What’s going to happen to me?”

  “Well, that’s a problem isn’t it? How do I get any value out of a broke spacer who can’t cover his debts? I guess the only thing I can figure that would make you of any worth to me is as an example.”

  “Huh? What kind of example?”

  Dan put the whole weight of his body behind the swing, drove his fist deep into Windman’s gut. The spacer, malnourished and skin-and-bones as he was, didn’t have a chance. Air whooshed from his mouth as he bent double. Stumbled back three paces and dropped hard on his butt.

  “So, this is going to hurt,” Dan promised, taking a step forward. “Sorry, but it’s the only way you can . . .”

  The hump of ferngrass behind Windman shifted, seemed to liquify and flow. Rising, the ground was swelling and expanding, beginning to take shape. The three eyes that blinked open on the great triangular head were fixed on Windman’s back.

  The spacer sat hunched on his ass, legs out straight, had both hands on his gut. His eyes were bugged, mouth open, expression that of a man in pain.

  Dan froze. Stared in disbelief as the huge creature formed behind the clueless Windman. Large. Easily two meters at the shoulders as it seemed to materialize out of thin air. But what the . . .

  Quetzal.

  Dan had seen enough of them. Dead, of course. Never in the flesh. Never this close.

  Tears were streaking down Windman’s now-red face. He gasped for air. Started to throw up. Never got the chance to finish.

  The quetzal struck, remarkably fast for so big a beast. The movement was a blur, the head twisting sideways. Mighty serrated jaws snapped shut on Windman’s torso, crushing his shoulders, chest, and gut. The beast twisted Windman sideways and lifted as it straightened its head. With a claw, it ripped most of the shirt off the man’s body. The spacer’s head, forearms, and hips protruded from the jaws like doll parts.

  Like some grotesquely oversi
zed terrier, the quetzal shook Windman, his limbs flopping loosely. Where the serrated jaws clamped tight, they severed Windman’s neck, an action that pitched the man’s head like a volleyball to bounce and roll just short of Dan’s feet.

  The quetzal’s hide now flickered in crimson and black patterns. Dan heard the crackling and snapping of Windman’s bones, watched the thing gulp the man’s upper body down. Straightening its neck, the great quetzal reached out with its claw-sharp foreleg and ripped Windman’s pants from his legs. The cloth sailed out to flutter to the ground.

  With another shake and gulp, the hips and arms vanished.

  Dan stumbled back, gaping in horror as the quetzal stripped off Windman’s boots and choked the rest of him down.

  The big plexiglass box stopped any further retreat when Dan’s back slammed against it.

  The last of spacer Windman was an oversized lump traveling down the quetzal’s throat. The three eyes fixed on Dan. Opening its mouth, the creature sucked air, venting a low harmony from the vents back by its tail.

  Dan shot a quick look, as desperate for an escape as Windman had been such a short time earlier. Backed against the transparent container as he was, his fingers slipped off the latch.

  Faster than a heartbeat, Dan flung the door open, darted inside, and closed it. A millisecond later, the quetzal hit the thick plastic with enough force to rock it back precariously.

  Desperately, Dan studied the latch, figured it out, and shot the bolt home that would lock it. As he did, the giant quetzal charged again, hit the plastic hard, and toppled it backward. The impact jarred Dan down to his bones. Then the quetzal leaped full onto the box, its weight flexing the plexiglass as it twisted its head this way and that, biting at the box.

  Fuck me, but if that latch breaks . . .

  Through the transparency, Dan had a close-up and mind-numbing view of the creature’s blade-like and bloody teeth, the red gullet, and swelling throat tissues.

  For what seemed an eternity, he and the quetzal stared at each other. The thing’s bloody jaws now pressed against the clear plastic, leaving crimson smears.