“Can I help?”
“Don’t worry. This will only take a little while, I’m sure. Stay where you are and get some sleep.” She waved absently and left.
Wide-awake now, Cidra went over to the diazite window and watched Desma hurry toward the long lab building. Nights on Renaissance were a couple of hours longer than on Lovelady. She estimated it must be about three hours from dawn. Through the gloom Cidra saw Desma disappear into the lab. She leaned on the windowsill and waited. The thought of going into that long, dark building full of bugs was not a pleasant one, but she supposed Desma was accustomed to her “pets.”
Cidra didn’t know when or exactly why she began to worry. When the low level of illumination she had noticed earlier that evening in the lab didn’t come back on soon after Desma disappeared inside, she began to get nervous. Desma had seemed to think the problem was a minor one that could be easily solved.
Minutes ticked past and there was still no sign of her hostess returning from the lab. Perhaps she could use some assistance after all. Cidra put on her delicate emerald-floss slippers and walked down the hall and out into the night. Her black-and-silver gown made her almost invisible in the shadows. The company that had the current contract for street lighting here in Try Again didn’t believe in importing too much heavy, expensive fluoroquartz. Most of the buildings on the street were shrouded in darkness, including the lab.
Visions of a long barn full of horrific insectoid creatures were very bright in Cidra’s mind when she tentatively opened the door Desma had already unlocked. The fetid smell from the interior assailed her as soon as she stepped inside. It seemed somehow worse in the oppressive darkness. The small, scurrying, screeching, and clacking noises were at full volume as the creatures in the cages went about their shadowy night business.
“Desma?”
There was no response. Cidra took another step inside. Tiny pinpoints of light darted about in the cage to her left. Up ahead she could see another faint, phosphorescent flicker. The natural luminescence of some of the inhabitants wasn’t nearly enough to light the aisles in front of the cages. Cidra took another cautious step, letting her eyes adjust to the deep shadows. She could barely make out the entrance to the first aisle.
“Desma? Where are you? Did you find the problem? Want me to get a quartzflash?”
Still no answer. Perhaps Desma was working on the machinery at the rear of the building. Slowly, not wanting to touch the cages she was passing, Cidra moved down the aisle. She knew that if she kept going straight, she would wind up at the back of the room where the control panels were installed. The fact that Desma was not responding was really beginning to alarm her.
When her foot caught on an object in the middle of the aisle, Cidra’s first thought was that one of the caged horrors had escaped and she had just become its prey. Her startled, panicked scream was muffled as she lost her balance and sprawled facedown on the metal floor. Frantically she twisted, intent only on getting away from whatever had tripped her. Her hand lashed out to ward off the unseen attacker and came into contact with fabric. Lab-tech uniform fabric. A small object rolled free of the fabric, clattering softly on the floor. It was gone before Cidra could reach for it, disappearing into the thick darkness under the cages.
“Desma! “ A new kind of fear assailed her as Cidra groped about, swearing with words she must have learned from Severance. “Desma, what’s wrong?” The woman’s body was limp, but when she found a throat pulse, Cidra breathed a sigh of shaky relief. Almost at once the fear returned, however. Whichever of the lab creatures had done this was still about, skulking in the shadows under the cages. She had to get herself and Desma out of the building. There was no telling what had bitten or stung Desma, and there was no telling how much time she had left.
Cidra awkwardly found the woman’s wrists and was getting to her feet when she realized that there was someone else in the lab. For an instant she froze as she heard the gliding footstep.
There was no possibility of the sound belonging to someone who would offer help. If that had been the case, whoever it was would have responded to her call for Desma. Cidra knew with absolute certainty that whoever was moving down the aisle toward her was the one responsible for whatever had happened to Desma.
Instinct prompted her to release her grip on the unconscious woman. The human hunter was now intent on new prey. Cidra crouched motionlessly, wondering why he didn’t simply flick on a quartzflash and pin her in the light. And then she realized what the object was that had rolled under the cages. Desma must have fought back briefly, knocking the flash free from her attacker’s hand.
Cidra strained to hear the next footfall above the soft, ominous chittering and chattering. It came after several excruciating heartbeats. She had to get away. Like any wild creature seeking safety, Cidra slipped to one side on her hands and knees, searching for the dark shadows under the cages. She was able to perceive a faint movement in the aisle as she stared out from under a cage. The clicking sound grew stronger, coming from directly overhead now as the creatures above her also sensed movement. There was a flurry of scratching sounds on the diazite, and then, whoever was in the aisle moved on. The insects above settled back down to a normal him of activity.
Cidra hugged herself, drawing the dark, concealing folds of her sleeping robe around her ankles. She tried to breathe as lightly as possible, using the skills she had learned in meditation practice. One thing was for certain. She couldn’t stay here. And she mustn’t risk allowing her pursuer time enough to find his lost quartzflash. No one who might be passing on the street outside would hear a scream from the heavily built lab structure. She had to find her way silently to the door.
But now the hunter was between her and the exit. Cidra contemplated that, trying to imagine what he might be thinking. He must have realized that she would try to get out the way she had entered. When she finally lost her nerve and made a dash for the door, he would be waiting. She would probably blunder straight into him. What she needed was an advantage.
In the darkness she needed light. But it had to be light she controlled. Slowly Cidra unwound and crawled out from under the cage. Instead of heading toward the door she began inching her way, still on her hands and knees, down the aisle toward the rear of the building.
Whoever waited for her heard the soft scuffling sounds. Cidra sensed him moving down the aisle, following carefully in the darkness. She stayed low, ready to dart back under the row of cages. As she moved she counted diazite structures she was passing, trying to remember exactly where she was. The tour of the lab that afternoon had been very thorough, and she had a well-trained memory. What good was an education if you didn’t put it to use?
The man behind her was gaining slowly, growing more confident as he followed the soft sounds she was making on the metal floor. When he spoke for the first time, Cidra almost screamed. His voice was a rasping whisper.
“Come on out, lady. Let’s get this over with. You don’t want to spend the rest of the night with these bugs, do you? No telling when one of them might get free. Why, I could open a couple of these cages myself with this little can opener I brought along. I might just do it, too, if you don’t cooperate.” He glided closer.
Cidra’s heart was hammering as the fear-induced adrenaline ricocheted through her system. Something was wrong with her insides. She felt almost sick. Steadily she moved down the aisle, forcing herself to count each cage. Three more to go . . . two more to go . . .
One more to go. One more, that is, if she had remembered exactly where she was when she had started and if she hadn’t lost count. She paused and listened. There was no sound from the inhabitants of the cage overhead. Flattening herself on the cold metal floor, Cidra waited. If she wasn’t beside the right cage, she was going to be trapped. She had to let the hunter get close. Too close to allow her to have a chance at escape if she had made a mistake.
She huddled into herself as the footsteps came nearer. He was making no effort to hide himself
now. The confidence of the hunter was born of arrogance and the belief that he held the upper hand. Just the same sort of attitude that could get a person into trouble when he was playing Free Market.
The footsteps came to a halt. Now, in the shadows, Cidra could make out a pair of heavy boots not more than two meters away. She drew in her breath and knew he heard the sound.
“There you are, little lady. I told you there wasn’t much point in hiding.”
Cidra put up her hand and flattened her warm palm against the diazite of what she believed was the Rigor Mortis Mantis cage. For a heart-stopping moment nothing happened. Then the creatures inside reacted with an instantaneous flare of eerie blue-white brilliance, illuminating themselves to the man in the boots facing them on the other side of the diazite.
Cidra was not staring up into the cage. She was waiting for a glimpse of her pursuer’s face. It came, the features bathed in blue-white terror as the Mantises switched on the paralyzing luminescence. She had time to note the fear, time to see the pulser grasped in one huge hand, and time to realize that the mantises were very good at their work. Their victim was literally immobilized with shock and horror. He couldn’t even scream, although Cidra could see the panic in his eyes as she leapt to her feet.
The mantises had bought her only a few seconds, but that was all the time Cidra needed. She flowed into the deceptively gentle movements of Moonlight and Mirrors.
NINE
I can’t let you out of my sight for a minute.” Severance slouched as usual in his seat, morosely regarding Cidra. Behind him the green wall of vegetation slipped past at a quick, steady pace as the skimmer, riding just above the water, followed the river into the dark heart of the jungle.
“That’s going to make things awkward, isn’t it? Because, after that display in the Bloodsucker, I’ve learned that I can’t take you anywhere.” Cidra knew she was being dangerously flippant, but the truth was that she was getting tired of the never-ending lectures. They had been going on in one form or another since she had dragged Desma out of the bio lab and called for help. Help had come quickly enough, but so had Severance.
“This isn’t a joke, Cidra. You could have been seriously hurt. Maybe killed. You should never have gone into that lab alone. As soon as you opened the door and realized something was wrong, you should have called a company guard. They get paid to go into places like that. You don’t. Come to think of it, I probably ought to dock your salary for bad judgment.”
“You’re not paying me a salary, remember? Just providing transportation and scenic sidetrips such as this one.” Cidra’s eyes widened slightly as she had a flash of intuition. “I think you’re chewing on me as if I were a bite of torla steak because I let him get away.”
Severance leaned forward with an abrupt movement and lowered his voice so that it was only barely audible above the hum of the skimmer’s power cells. “If you really believe that, then you’re functioning on fewer brains than a novakeet.”
The image was not a pleasant one. Novakeets, with their splashy orange-and-red plumage, were pretty enough creatures, but on Lovelady nature seemed to have decided that such beauty didn’t need a lot of brainpower. Cidra cast a quick glance toward the front of the skimmer where the pilot was safely out of earshot inside the diazite cabin. Then she glared at Severance.
“Why are you so angry with me. Severance? You’ve been this way since you found out what happened.”
“I’m angry because you came so damn close to getting yourself hurt, you little idiot!”
She searched his fierce gaze for a moment. “Desma was the one who got hurt.”
“I’m aware of that. Just promise me that next time you’re on the threshold of a situation that looks serious, you’ll go get help, not try to handle things yourself.”
Cidra considered the request. It seemed reasonable. “All right. I promise.” She was silent for another moment. “Do you think I’m likely to run into many such situations while I’m traveling with you?”
“Not if you do as you’re told.” Somewhat mollified, Severance leaned back in his seat again. “Saints in hell, you gave me a scare.”
“Believe me. It was nothing compared to the scare that intruder got. I’ve never seen anyone’s face twisted in such a way. It was as if he were wearing a mask. Which is why I had so much difficulty describing him later to the company guards.”
“They know he was carrying a pulser, at least. That’s illegal inside the walls. Did you knock it out of his hand when you went into your Moonlight and Mirrors routine?”
Cidra closed her eyes, trying to remember those awful few moments. “I don’t know if I disarmed him or if he simply dropped the thing in his terror. He was quite frozen with fear for a few seconds. And I wasn’t far behind. Even though I wasn’t looking at the creatures and I knew something of what to expect, that eerie brilliance they produce is very hard on the nerves. In the darkness the man couldn’t see the diazite between him and the mantises. Even if he knew that logically speaking they were probably in a cage, his mind reacted first to the terror. When they leapt toward him, he saw them move. The next thing he knew, he felt me attacking. In his fear I think his mind mixed up the two sensations and assumed that the Rigor Mortis Mantises actually had hold of him. He didn’t try to fight me as if I were merely a human being. He screamed and fled. Which is why I was not successful in detaining him. His terror gave him a great deal of strength.”
“And you’re just damn lucky he didn’t use it against you.”
“Severance, if you say another word along those lines—”
He held up his hand. “I know. It’s just that I’m still recovering from shock. Thank Sweet Harmony that you and Desma are both all right.”
“I just hope Desma’s not in any danger now that we’re gone.” Cidra still felt uneasy about leaving her new friend behind in Try Again, even though Desma had displayed no such concern.
“She’s hardly alone,” Severance said bluntly. “Her company will be giving her and the lab full-time protection now that they know someone has his eyes on one of the products she’s on the verge of producing.”
“She thinks the intruder was after some record of the results of her work on a new pesticide,” Cidra murmured. “Apparently it would be worth a great deal to a rival firm.”
“All the more reason for her company to take care of her. She and the lab both qualify as company property.” Severance’s mouth lifted slightly in the first trace of amusement Cidra had seen since he’d shown up after the incident in the lab. “And you come under the heading of company property yourself. Right now you belong to the firm of Severance Pay, Ltd. It’s my responsibility to keep track of you. So you will stay in sight so I can do exactly that.”
Cidra withdrew into the remote, polite facade that she was learning served her well during times when she wished to halt a conversation with Severance. She was careful to maintain a serene expression so that he couldn’t accuse her of sulking. There were advantages to some of the Harmonic tricks she’d learned over the years.
She turned her attention to the wide swath of river that served as a highway for the skimmer. Occasionally they passed the mouth of one of the many tributaries that fed into the main stream. The network of rivers was extensive, and many of the smaller ones still had not been fully explored. The water passing under the skimmer was a murky color, thick with the sediment it had picked up on its meandering journey She couldn’t see more than a few centimeters under the surface. The vegetation grew right to the water’s edge and into it. Huge leaves of an impossible green hung over the banks. Occasionally Cidra caught a splash of movement as some river denizen leapt out of the water to snatch a tasty morsel that had made the mistake of journeying too far out on a broad leaf.
At one point she thought she had seen a set of reptilian eyes just above the water, watching the skimmer sweep past. When she had pointed them out to Severance, he had shrugged and said she had probably seen a river dracon.
“I�
�m not familiar with river dracons,” she said. “What do they look like?”
“You don’t want to know,” he told her.
“Nonsense. All knowledge is good.”
“Even knowledge that gives you nightmares?”
She let that pass. She hadn’t slept easily the previous night. Images of huge bugs shining with unnatural light had invaded her dreams.
Tough reeds and floating flowers that were almost a meter wide battled for living space near the banks of the river. Beyond them the jungle was a wall of green that discouraged any attempts at penetration. The companies involved in exploration work had soon learned that it was easier to use the rivers as roads than to try to rip out the vegetation and pave the jungle floor. There were one or two other small settlements similar to Try Again where a mail ship or small plane could land on the continent, but for the most part, field camps and outposts were accessible only by river skimmer.
The skimmer rode a short distance above the water, sinking back down onto the water when the engines were cut. It was a lightweight boat, made to carry small amounts of cargo and passengers. The crew usually consisted of just one individual who also acted as guide. In this case the pilot’s name was Overcash. He wore the uniform of the ExcellEx company. If Overcash had a birth name in addition to the one he’d chosen, he hadn’t bothered to dispense it when he had been introduced to Cidra. It hadn’t surprised her. She was growing accustomed to the lack of formality among Wolves. She was also getting used to the fact that outside Try Again, people were armed. Overcash and Severance both wore pulsers strapped to their thighs, the small, personal weapon the lab intruder had held. Pulsers were blunt, ugly instruments that would kill.
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