Instinct must have warned her prey at the last second because he turned just as she swung the lamp. The heavy base crashed into the side of his skull with all the force she could put behind the blow, and he collapsed in slow motion, falling from the chair.
Jill checked quickly for a pulse, finding the scientist was alive, his breathing intermittent but his pulse strong. The Khagrish must have dense bones and thick skulls.
She wouldn’t have been upset if she’d killed him, not with the horrendous experiments this lab carried out and his obviously unpleasant intentions toward her. His alliance with the Chimmer was enough by itself to make him an enemy of the Sectors, but she wasn’t going to bludgeon an unconscious man to execute him. She used the restraints he’d planned to use on her, appreciating the irony as she trussed him tight. Before dragging him into the other room, she stuffed a scarf in his mouth to keep him from yelling if he regained consciousness. If he awoke, she didn’t want him to watch whatever she did. Taking no chances, she tied his feet to the legs of the bed with his ornamental belt and left him on the floor.
A rapid search revealed no weapons in the drawers. Jill stood in the center of the room, hands on her hips, and considered the next move. She took deep breaths to calm her shaky nerves and worked to control her adrenaline. I have all night. The guards have orders not to disturb Gahzhing’s private fantasy scene. She slipped into the desk chair and sat with her hands poised above the data entry keyboard. Do I dare?
Screw it, this is my best chance to get the information I need to help myself and Aydarr’s pack.
A moment later, she hit the jackpot. Dr. Gahzhing had unlimited access to the entire contents of the AI system, including the oldest core programming. He was a super user as far as privileges went, although she didn’t find much evidence he actually interfaced with the AI for anything other than communication and making research notes.
And accessing alien porn trideos. Ugh.
She created multiple access points into the core of the AI’s processor for herself, using Gahzhing’s credentials, setting up her own user names and encryption but then erasing the signs of the activity. Pulling the handheld from her pocket, she made sure she could use the device to access what she’d created, then she began surfing the thousands of applications and files, doing a rapid scan for whatever might be useful. A layout of the complex was high on her list of priorities. Information on her fellow humans was a close second.
Increasingly driven by an uneasy feeling, Jill got up to check on her captive, who was still unconscious. On her way to the desk, she grabbed a few morsels of the dinner the scientist had evidently ordered for their evening. Taking a piece of spicy bread to munch on, she hastened to the chair. Immersing herself in the AI’s processes again, she continued her education on the lab complex. She found an intriguing reference to a natural disaster quite a few years earlier and an abandoned set of buildings deemed unsafe for occupancy. Might be a good temporary lair if the whole place hasn’t fallen down by now.
Nerves on edge, she admitted to herself she was spending too much precious time on gathering intel and needed to escape. If I don’t get away now, I’ll never have another chance, even if Gahzhing doesn’t kill me. She pulled up the ventilation shaft system specs and studied the serpentine twists.
Leaving the desk, she examined the vent in the next room in the opposite direction from the bedroom, which was being used as a kitchen and a storeroom. The vent was big enough for her to climb into, and the diagrams showed she could work her way out of the lab buildings and transition into the abandoned facility. That discovery led her to call up topographical studies of the countryside beyond the complex.
If she, the other humans, and Aydarr’s pack could escape where could they run to be safe? There were interesting possibilities, including one large river valley a few miles away with odd notations about anomalies in the observations and problems with aerial overflight. Mineral deposits blocking the scanners? A possible refuge.
Gasping, Jill startled and nearly fell out of the chair when the comlink pinged at her elbow. Fortunately, Dr. Gahzhing had set it to take messages or whoever was calling might have seen her sitting at his desk. Disastrous. I gotta go now. Pushing it too far, trying to gather data..
She still hadn’t located the humans, nor found any indication of what plans there were for those prisoners. This was her best opportunity to easily discover the answers she craved. “But I can study all of it at my leisure. Prioritize once I hole up in a safe spot.”
Someone or something brushed against the door in the corridor, and she froze. The noise wasn’t repeated, but it was past time to go. She had the AI create and store a series of fleeting, false images of her running through the corridors, then opening the door to the Preserve. Hopefully, they’d believe she was dumb enough to flee to the one place she was familiar with. Maybe the Khagrish would eventually decide she’d been eaten by a predator and stop searching for her.
Jill glanced at the sleek black cuff on her wrist. I hope they can’t track me with this. The surface was more dull than usual—maybe Gahzhing had burnt it out with his increase of the stun power.
With a shrug because there was nothing she could do about the cuff right now, she re-examined her falsified vids. It’s the best I can do, no time for elaborate red herrings.
She left the desk, walked into the kitchen and opened the grate covering the entry to the ventilation shaft, which wasn’t charged here in Gahzhing’s quarters. Fingers clumsy, she bundled up the easily carried food in a cloth napkin, grabbed two water bottles from the store-all in the kitchen, made sure all traces of what she’d done on the AI were erased, wiped the input device keys to remove her fingerprints, and fled.
Swallowing hard, she slithered into the dark ventilation shaft and curled like a human pretzel to close the cover securely behind herself. She hoped the Khagrish would believe she’d fled into the Preserve like the silly, scared animal they assumed her to be and take her faked trideos at face value. She scooted along as fast as she could, pushing her makeshift pack of food and water ahead of her, while trying not to make any noise. Periodically, there were squares of diffused light where the vent opened into another room. She’d memorized the route she wanted to take to reach the partially destroyed building and escape from there into the wilderness.
Hearing voices ahead, she paused, controlling her breathing and trying not to make any noise. Moving an inch at a time, she crept to the edge of the vent and peeked into the room. Here the grate was at ceiling level, so she was looking down onto a group of the guards, maybe recently off duty, drinking hot beverages, laughing and playing a game with dice and cards.
I’ve got to get past them.
She waited, hoping there’d be a distraction causing them to stop the game and leave the room, but there were no signs of the gathering coming to a conclusion. This might be part of their barracks, in which case no one would be leaving. Not until the alarm sounds when someone finds Gahzhing. Jill wanted to be much farther away from the complex by then. She called on her previous military training and moved literally an inch at a time, sliding herself past the vent and avoiding any sound, any rapid motion likely to attract attention from the men below.
At one point she froze, as the man sitting opposite the vent stared off into space, pondering his next bet or the cards he’d received. If he’d focused, he would have seen her.
He made his wager, his buddies gave him a hard time, the game continued, and she forced herself to move.
Once past the square of light, Jill’s instinct was to crawl as fast as she could, but she made herself continue to creep, wary of making too much noise. When she reached the next junction of the shafts, she was relieved to veer left and get even further away from the guard room.
She had no idea what time it was or how much longer she might have until Gahzhing was found. Slow and steady was the only way to proceed. The lighted squares grew fewer and far between, and eventually there were none. If she was reme
mbering the maps correctly, this should be the long tunnel to the abandoned part of the facility.
She reached forward and felt tiny bodies, dry as husks. She swallowed a scream. Apparently, there’d been a nest of vermin here at one time, but the creatures had perished. Swallowing hard to keep from throwing up, Jill worked her way past the obstacle.
Now a swathe of misty moonlight bloomed ahead and she moved faster, not worrying as much about noise.
The end of the shaft was jagged, with a pile of debris on the other side of the break. She let herself down from the end of the shaft carefully, landing on top of shifting rubble and barely keeping her balance. As best she could manage in the moonlight streaming in through the broken roof, she worked her way toward the interior of the building, on a quest to find a place to hide while she considered her next move.
Eventually, she found a partially destroyed room and dragged a broken door over to disguise the opening. She sat with her back against the wall and closed her eyes, weary beyond belief. Fishing out the small packet of food she’d brought, she forced herself to eat a snack.
Tomorrow she’d have to decide whether to flee into the countryside. She wanted to remain close to the labs, where her fellow humans were held, and where Aydarr would return to, but perhaps it would be better to put more distance between herself and the Khagrish. Do her planning from further away?
She curled up as best she could to get some sleep. She missed the warm, reassuring bulk of Aydarr’s body next to hers. Teary eyed, she prayed to the Lords of Space for his wellbeing. I hope he’s doing all right wherever they sent him. I hope we can figure out a way to escape together once the pack is back on the planet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The sound of distant sirens woke her, early in the morning. Someone must have found Gahzhing. Carefully, Jill worked her way out of the alcove where she’d sheltered and found a path through the badly damaged building to where she could see the rest of the lab complex, across a large field. She realized with a flash of claustrophobia the ventilation shaft must have taken her underground from the main set of buildings to this ruin. Glad she hadn’t known exactly where she was at the time, she retreated into the core of the partially collapsed building.
Much of the place was destroyed, but she was able to work her way through, and she decided if the structure hadn’t fallen in on itself during the many years since the big earthquake toppled it originally, nothing was going to fall on her head today.
She paused to eat the rest of her snack and considered what to do next. Suddenly, she doubled over in pain, clutching her wrist and the black bracelet. The sensation was excruciating, as if hot probes had been inserted under her skin. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood so she wouldn’t scream.
The world spun as black lines of filaments ran down her arm toward the bracelet. The cuff suddenly broke into three equal pieces with a loud snap and fell to the floor. Jill leaned against the wall, eyes closed, breathing slowly, waiting for the pain and nausea to pass.
After a few minutes, she leaned over to examine the broken bracelet. Maybe the extra power Gahzhing had pumped into it last night overloaded the circuits. Or perhaps her human DNA had finally killed whatever bio mechanism the device used to paralyze and inflict pain on the Badari prisoners. Either way, she couldn’t be tracked or controlled by it any longer and that result was worth a bit of suffering. She scooped up the three pieces and hid them under a pile of rubble, where the remnants blended in with the broken masonry.
Jill considered her priorities. Still too close to the Khagrish, she’d easily be recaptured if she wasn’t careful. Balancing that, she wanted to search the ruins for anything useful, especially a weapon or two. From what she’d seen in the AI system, the place was essentially abandoned with no effort to salvage anything after the bodies of those killed or injured were removed. And she was eager to delve into the AI system itself, hunting for news about her fellow colonists, as well as Aydarr and the pack.
AI first, she decided, wiping her lips after taking a swig from her water bottle. See what’s going on as far as their attempts to recover me. But she vowed not to spend too much time on it, unlike the night before when she’d taken a big risk by staying in Gahzhing’s quarters for hours.
Getting into a more comfortable position, she brought out her handheld, wondering how long a charge it carried and how far the sensors reached. If she traveled to the valley, when would the connection break? She’d made sure the handheld itself was untraceable, recording it as destroyed in the central inventory list. I can’t think of everything, but I’m trying not to be dumb about this.
She set a timer and dove into the AI ocean of data and communications, using one of her backdoor super user accounts. Gahzhing had been found alive but with head injuries. He had yet to regain consciousness, so Dr. Cwamla was in charge.
The primary emphasis in attempting to capture Jill was on the Preserve, as she’d hoped. The countervailing theory was that she was hiding in the buildings. Dr. Sheyall had been accused of helping her, subjected to questioning, and was now under arrest, protesting her innocence. Setting her up to take the blame. Jill felt a pang of pity for the young scientist, who wasn’t as bad as any of the others, but there wasn’t anything to be done, other than give herself up. Even her surrender might not appease Gahzhing when he regained consciousness. Information on the humans was restricted, but Jill had the all-access passwords and was relieved to find the colonists were still being held in stasis, awaiting the detailed experimental protocols from the Chimmer.
She checked on the pack’s status, but there was nothing new. Jill set an alert to notify her when new updates were posted or when the pack returned to the labs.
Then she glanced at her timer and queried for the plans of the building she was in. Having identified a few likely spots to check for weapons and supplies, if the areas were at all accessible, she decided it was time for action. She was edgy, tense, worried about spending too long here. I’d better move out before someone thinks about this place. She called up the maps and memorized the most likely route to the river valley.
Closing her connection to the AI, except for one alert if anything new was posted regarding her, she reset the timer and crawled out of the spot where she’d hidden.
A standard hour later, she was tired and grimy but had a few treasures to show for her efforts. She had indeed located the armory, most of which was crushed under five floors of the building pancaked in the quake, but in an outer chamber she found two Khagrish pulse rifles carrying charges. Dropped as the owners fled the earthquake maybe.
Close by, she located an untouched storeroom and filled a rucksack with what looked like energy bars. These things last forever in anyone’s civilization. There were a few sealed containers she thought might be juice or water. She found a row of employee lockers lying on top of a pile of rubble and grabbed a jacket, two extra shirts, socks, and a pair of boots that were too large but better than her prison flip-flops.
With a shudder, she had to shake a few spiderlike creatures from their home in the boots, glad she’d double-checked first before jamming her feet inside. The injects were still working to protect her, but she couldn’t afford any downtime right now.
Deciding the time was now to leave the ruins, she worked her way to the rear of the complex, having to abandon the safety of the spaces in between the collapsed areas, to skulk through the overgrown greenery and young trees. She’d have to travel through an open meadow to reach the relative sanctuary of the forest beyond. Even though there’d been no alerts, she took a moment to log into the AI and check. Judging by the status reports, the enemy was combing the Preserve and the building. Only a matter of time before someone thinks of the ventilation shafts.
Jill adjusted her backpack, and the pulse rifle she’d slung across it. She carried the other one at the ready. Neither was fully charged but so much better than bare hands, or even the knife she’d grabbed from Gahzhing’s efficiency kitchen.
Sh
e eyed the edge of the forest, maybe two hundred yards away. If she could get under the canopy of the trees, she’d feel safer. Then work her way west, toward the mysterious river valley. Aydarr’s words about the legend of one Badari who’d managed to flee into the woods and was never caught came to her, giving faint hope for her own situation. With her training and a few lucky breaks, she might make it.
The drone of a flitter caught her attention, and she dodged into the limited shelter of the ruins.
The flyer circled the lab complex and took off toward the north, away from her, but Jill took the sighting as a sign to be on the move. Taking a deep breath, she crept into the open, the back of her neck tingling as she expected to be confronted by Khagrish guards springing at her from cover.
Moving as slowly as possible, she worked her way through the meadow, staying low, using any cover there was and, after a nerve wrenching hour, she was on her feet again, moving through the forest and heading west.
At midday she paused to take a break in the shadow of a massive tree and eat an energy bar, washed down with a few swallows of water. Maybe I’m not a high priority target to them anyway. After all, the Khagrish remained in possession of an unknown number of her fellow Sectors colonists. But she was pretty sure Dr. Gahzhing was the type to want revenge, if he survived, so she should expect to be hunted. Jill hoped there’d be no repercussions against the pack. The Badari had nothing to do with her escape. She checked the handheld briefly and found it still accessed the lab’s AI, even from this distance.
Judging by the topography maps she’d studied, she anticipated reaching the river valley by nightfall if she pushed herself and kept up a fast pace.
Sure enough, at sunset she came out onto the bluffs overlooking the wide, green valley, with a fairly substantial river winding through the center, widening into a lake whose sapphire waters glowed in the sunshine before cascading over a massive falls.
AydarrGoogle Page 10