Kylee could imagine Talina’s reaction. The woman always cringed when Kylee cursed. As if she’d forgotten just who taught her those choice words to start with. Madison would be horrified. But then, Madison was tens of kilometers away.
And this was personal.
Cupping her hands around her mouth, Kylee thundered, “Asshole!”
There, was that movement? A shift in the IR, a change of pattern? She’d have sworn the branches wavered for an instant. Not the sort of thing a quetzal would notice, but human eyes, trained by eons of terrestrial evolution caught the wavering shift of image.
“There you are!” She pointed. “Right there. Ha! I see you! Got your ass now.”
Even vigilant as she was, she almost missed it. Was looking at the body. Not down below. Not where the spike appeared out of nothingness, curling toward her with ferocious speed.
Fast as she was, the thing missed her by a bare finger’s width as it ripped past. She barely caught herself, dropping to one hand to keep from losing her balance on the high root. Shot a look to follow the ropy black barb as it was pulled up high again.
“Got it?” Kylee called.
“Got it!” Talina’s head popped up on the other side of a clump of roots no more than thirty meters away. She braced her rifle on the top, sighted, and released a cracking volley as she emptied a magazine.
Staring up, Kylee watched the IR shift as the rounds hit home, drove deep, and exploded.
The creature sucked up its wounded part, rolling it up inside a fold of hide. How damn big was that thing? Those rounds would have torn a quetzal in two.
Kylee tensed as the black tip of the tentacle came whipping down again. Instinctively, she dropped down in front of the top root. Timed it and skipped sideways.
The impact as the sharp spear drove into the barrel-thick root toppled her from her hold. She fell, bounced off a root, and threw herself backward onto the mat below.
The whole mass went crazy as quetzal shit. She scrambled backward in a crab walk, watching the massive root, impaled as it was. The tentacle kept tugging, trying to break free. Would have, but the root, like a giant rolling drum, twisted around itself. Acting like a capstan it wound the impaled tentacle tight, trapping it.
From overhead, a deafening shriek sounded.
Even as the roots under Kylee’s hands and feet erupted in movement, a thrashing began shaking the branches above. The sound of snapping, the rattle of leaves, a whipping back and forth as branches cracked overwhelmed the chime.
Careening for balance, Kylee found her feet. Arms extended, she scampered across the now-writhing mess, barely avoided being trapped as she fled over a bundle of interwoven roots.
Over the tumult, she heard Talina’s voice shouting into com: “Dek? Where are you?”
Kylee raced across an open space, vaulted another bundle of roots, and barely skipped out of the way as a sidewinder whipped out from a hollow.
Heart hammering, she beat feet for the next tangle—and somehow got across before they convulsed with the intensity of God pulling the Gordian knot tight.
Panting, she located Talina, saw the woman backpedaling, struggling for balance on the squirming footing as she kept her eyes skyward.
Kylee chanced a glance. Followed the trapped tentacle up to where the great beast clung among the whipping branches. How big? Maybe fifty meters across the body. The legs weren’t legs but elongated tissue that ended in prehensile tentacles that wrapped around the high branches. Even in its extreme, the creature tried to mimic its surroundings, but the patterns were off, almost random, like a riot of alternating shapes.
“Dek?” Talina screamed.
Even as she did, the sound of the airplane was faintly audible over the creature’s ear-splitting screams and the thrashing forest.
Kylee bit her lip, fought for balance, then turned and ran again as the roots began to roil.
“Run!” she shouted at Talina. Saw her friend turn, bolting across the traumatized roots. Together they scrambled across a high tangle of trunk-thick roots.
“Come on, Dek!” Talina said between ragged pants. “Where the hell are you?”
“He’ll . . .” Over her shoulder, Kylee caught a glimpse of the tentacle thinning under the tremendous strain. It broke. The meaty parting of tissue and tendon like a clap of thunder. With the power of severed elastic, the trapped length snapped down onto the bundled roots. Above, the remaining stump shot up into the creature’s body, its path marked by spewing fluids.
Then movement. Something big. Indistinct and incredibly fast. Accompanied by crashing and tearing, branches were being whipped back only to lash angrily forward. The entire canopy seemed to erupt.
“What the hell?”
“Kylee!” Talina screamed. “Duck!”
The detonation blasted downward as the branches where the beast had been were torn asunder. In the deafening explosion’s roar came a clutter of broken branches, shredded leaves, and cascading detritus.
“Fucking run!” Talina shouted. And turning, she sprinted, leaping roots, pounding her way up tangles.
Kylee was right with her, matching her step for step.
“That’s for Mom and Dad, you piece of shit,” Kylee averred, and then she put all of her efforts toward speed as agitation spread through the roots like a tsunami racing toward a distant shore.
A last thought was: This whole thing might have been a mistake.
Any second now, the roots were going to be too wild, the footing too precarious. All it would take was a single misstep . . .
89
Dek yanked back on the stick, worked the rudder, and pulled a couple of gs as he rolled back over the forest. He’d dropped the charge perfectly. Had taken the time to ensure it was right on the money.
He could see the exact spot the magtex had detonated and torn a hole in the canopy. Trees were shredded, leaves torn, the forest reacting like a stone had been dropped into a pond. The agitation spread out in a giant ring. A meteor impact into an ocean would look that way.
“Talina?” he called. “Did we get it?”
No answer.
Instead, he checked the instruments. Should have been organic material blasted all over the place. Chunks of torn tissue, given the mass they’d calculated for the creature. His readings showed some animal tissue, lots of tree organics, of course.
“But not enough creature guts and goo,” he murmured as he banked around for another look.
It was the angle of the light. He saw it. Like a V just ahead of the expanding tsunami of tree agitation.
He straightened, settled the airplane’s nose on the point of the vee, and dropped down. His remote sensors made the tag. Got the same readings as when he’d flown the survey that originally pinpointed the creature’s location. The difference this time was a lot of heat. Something big, moving fast.
But what the hell?
How could something that big travel that fast? And yes, he was getting a trail of animal proteins. The monster was wounded. Bleeding. Leaking. Whatever.
He dropped his airspeed to just above stall speed to try and keep pace. Couldn’t. Had to circle.
“Dek?”
“Tal? You all right?”
“Fucking crazy down here.” She sounded out of breath. “Remind us not to be on the ground underneath one of these things next time we bomb it.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got some bad news for you.”
“How’s that?”
“It got away. It’s wounded, headed almost due west through the treetops. And Tal? It’s moving along at about thirty kph.”
Silence.
Finally, Talina’s voice, almost sounding defeated, replied, “Shit! What the hell is this thing?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got the recordings, but Talina? My take? That thing knew the second I dropped that charge. Like it kn
ew exactly when to cut its loses and run.”
Silence.
Then, “I just told Kylee. Is it still moving?”
“Affirmative. Doesn’t seem to be slowing in the slightest. Just headed west like it’s on a mission. And moving in a hell of a hurry.”
“Roger that. Maybe Vixen can pick it up on the long-range sensors. How’s your fuel?”
“About sixty percent in the powerpack.”
“Yeah. We’ve done all we can here. See you back in PA.”
Dek ground his teeth, glared down at where the agitation in the trees marked the creature’s path. “What the hell are you?”
And more to the point, where was it going?
And how could it have known it was being bombed from above?
EPILOGUE
Inga’s tavern was running on full throttle that night. And regular as clockwork, it was Hofer who’d been too deep in his cups. While he’d give you the shirt off his back when he was sober, the guy had a tendency to let his mouth overload his ass when he was drunk.
Now it was some poor ship’s tech who was catching it; out of contract on Ashanti, he’d stayed behind to try his luck.
“Hey!” Talina bellowed. She pulled her pistol, banged it on the chabacho-wood bar. “You stop that shit, Hofer, or I’m gonna smack your head into next week! Now, beat feet. Take your sorry chapped ass home and put it in bed! I see you out again tonight, and maybe Raya will be able to put the pieces back together!”
Inga’s went quiet as a tomb. People staring.
Three tables away, Hofer, almost reeling on his feet, craned his head in Talina’s direction. The man’s eyes—glittering with drink—widened in an owlish manner. He swallowed hard. With careful fingers, he let loose of the Skull he’d jerked off the bench and was about to punch in the face.
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. Paused to straighten the Skull’s rumpled uniform shirt, and on unsteady feet, wobbled his way toward the door.
“You!” Talina barked, pointing with the pistol. “Soft meat, you’re no better. Get your candy ass out of here, or you’ll be carried. Got it?”
The Skull, maybe in his midthirties, gulped. Not knowing what else to do, he snapped off a salute and slurred, “Yes, ma’am.”
Then he, too, started for the exit on unsteady feet. Made it only to the foot of the stairs, bent, and heaved his guts all over the stone floor. Groans and catcalls went up from around the room.
Fitzroy and one of the Hmongs grabbed him by the armpits, hustling him up the stairs.
Talina reholstered her pistol and turned back to her glass of stout. The poor sod would probably find himself atop the nearest shipping crate come morning. No one just pitched a drunk onto the ground. Not in PA. Too much chance of a slug, you know.
Talina sighed, rubbed her forehead.
She’d seen Kalico down the bar talking to Pamlico Jones. Probably something about the Ashanti cargo. It hadn’t turned out to be the mother lode everyone had hoped for. But for some lights, the six airtrucks, a couple pieces of ludicrous farm equipment, and the cacao seeds, most of the inventory turned out to be in support of the Maritime Unit.
Boats, underwater vehicles, diving pods, and the like were all good and well for Michaela’s team out in the ocean where they’d dropped their main pod. Not so good for PA and Corporate Mine.
“Hear you missed the beast that got Talbot and Dya.” Kalico appeared at Talina’s elbow and hitched herself up on her stool, a half-glass of whiskey already in hand.
“Dek and I went over the video. It knew. No doubt about it. The thing snapped its trapped tentacle off and fled the moment Dek dropped his charge. Oh, and there’s this. Memo to Supervisor: Do not be standing below when you try to blow arboreal monsters out of the trees in deep forest.”
“A little hairy?”
“That’s the closest I’ve been to dead in a while. Kylee and I made it. Barely. That entire forest went apeshit. As fast as we were hauling ass, we’d have been dead a couple of times over if the tooth flowers, sidewinders, and gotcha vines hadn’t been hanging on for dear life.” Talina grunted. “How stupid can we be? And this far into the game?”
Kalico shook her head. “I keep seeing that huge black thing. How it stuck through their bodies. Jerked them like eiderdown into the air.”
“Yeah, well it’s still out there to creep-freak your dreams. Vixen wasn’t in position to track it. Kylee’s pissed.”
“Knowing something’s out there is half the battle.”
Talina toyed with her stout glass. “Heard that Ashanti inverted symmetry today. Think they’ll make it?”
“Don’t know. But with each ship, the odds get better. Dek sent Wirth back as bait. If Ashanti pops back in Solar System’s space, it will be the richest treasure ship in all of human history. But it’s Wirth’s plunder that will focus the Board. Donovan will be the center of their every thought and ambition.”
Talina raised her glass. “To the lily-assed Board. Maybe they can send us chickens again. I miss eggs, and I think we’re smart enough to keep the hens from eating the invertebrates this time around.”
“How were the cannibals doing?”
“Passable. At least they didn’t interfere with the monster hunt. I think they’re starting to realize just what a rough row they have to hoe out there. That woman, Shyanne, I think we can deal with her.”
Kalico fingered the scar that ran down her jaw. “It’s a new calculus. We’ve got two new settlements. Michaela Hailwood wants me to see the Maritime Unit as soon as she gets it fully functional. Talking with her, I get the feeling that some of her people are already getting antsy. Like Corporate Mine, I’m going to have to set up a rotation for them.”
“Sure.” Talina smiled grimly. “Hey, with the cannibals, the Maritime Unit, and the Ashanti crew who stayed, we’re back to a thousand people. Not to mention a real living Taglioni.”
“Dek come back with you?”
“Nope. He stayed out at Briggs’ claim. I guess Chaco showed him a real promising vein in the next canyon. Dek said he wanted to get some ore samples for assay.”
“Oh.”
Talina arched a brow. “Heard you and he went for a long walk the other night.”
“I don’t know what to do with him.” Kalico gave her an evaluative look. “What he did with Wirth? He’s thinking five moves ahead. And don’t for a minute buy this humble I-wanna-be-a-Wild-One shit. He’s a Taglioni. He can’t help himself. That’s still hidden down there inside him somewhere.”
“Maybe. My take? He belongs to Donovan now. Like the Unreconciled, he’s never going back.”
“How so?”
“He and Flute have exchanged blood.”
“He tell you that?”
“Didn’t have to. I saw the wound. And I know it was voluntary. Which leaves you with a question for yourself: You ever going back?”
Kalico’s gaze went blank, staring into some infinity in her mind. “Dek tells me I can’t.”
“And?”
“Scares me right down to my bones.”
“Welcome to Donovan.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W. Michael Gear is the author of fifty-seven published novels, many of which are co-authored with his beloved wife, Kathleen O'Neal Gear. He is a New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author whose work has been translated into 29 languages and has over 17 million copies in print worldwide. Both an anthropologist and archaeologist, he brings extraordinary depth and complexity to his characters and settings.
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