He took a full step toward it, then. “Come on then!” he shouted as loud as he could.
It backed two steps away, slinking deeper into the shadows. He could barely see it now, still circling him. He had a feeling it hadn’t given up on him being its next meal, though.
One chance. He’d circled most of the way back to the rifle. If he could just get to it before the thing reached him...!
He dove for the gun.
The rat-lizard burst out of the shadows, liquid movement rushing toward him, jaws open.
The jaws were closing on his face. With an effort, he held the rifle in both hands and thrust the middle between those terrible teeth. They snapped shut, fangs scraping against metal and tearing into plastic with a horrible grinding sound.
He twisted the rifle, turning toward the thing’s hurt foot. It gave a high pitched yelp as he forced weight on the injured appendage; the jaws opened. The leg wouldn’t support it, and it tipped over onto its side, claws scrabbling at the air to ward him away.
He hefted the rifle by the barrel. He wasn’t sure if it would fire, after the thing’s teeth had torn it up. But he didn’t need to fire it. He swung the butt of the rifle down, hard, on the rat-lizard’s head.
“I’ve had enough!” he shouted, hitting it again. “Of you!”
His words echoed off the walls as he dealt another blow. He hammered the thing in the skull three more times before it stopped moving. Then he turned the rifle around. He switched the selector from burst to semi-automatic, aimed for its head, and pulled the trigger.
The gun still worked.
John stood there panting a moment, trying to catch his breath. He looked around the room. It was large – maybe ten meters square. There was an arched opening on one side of the room, and he was pretty sure it was the same side as the strange stone building they’d been trying to investigate. Perhaps there was a way inside, after all. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and tried to flick it on, so he could see through the doorway, but it wouldn’t turn on. Must have broken in the fall.
“Hang on! We’re coming!” he heard Andy call from somewhere above.
“I’m OK, Andrew,” he shouted back up the hole. “But I think we’re going to want to take a look down here.”
Andy’s face appeared in the hole. “You’re OK? Where’s the thing that fell down with you?”
“Dead,” John replied. “What, thought I was completely defenseless without you?” He chuckled. It wasn’t too far from the mark, usually. This sort of thing had never been his strong point.
Andy raised his eyebrows. He was probably thinking the same thing. “Glad you’re safe. Hang on, we’ll tie a rope up here and be right down.”
Ten
Dan leaned back in his chair. He’d tried several times to get through to John and the others, but they weren’t responding to his radio calls. Which was a problem. They wouldn’t be due to check in for another fifteen minutes, and Dan didn’t feel like they could just sit around even that long. Paul was out there, up to something. They needed to take action, not sit around.
“They’re either out of range, or inside one of those buildings, or something. I can’t get through to them,” Dan said, his voice full of frustration. He and Beth were sitting in the bridge, trying to figure out what to do next. Dan couldn’t help but notice how her eyes kept flicking to the screen showing the external cameras, like she expected Paul to show up any second.
“We could just move the ship and tell them where we are once we get radio contact back,” Beth suggested.
Dan shook his head. “I don’t know if that makes sense. What if they’re having radio trouble? Or send someone running back because of an injury, or some other problem? We need to be where they expect us to be. I could hop us a short distance and then we’d see them coming. But I think Paul would probably see the dust from our landing and figure things out anyway, don’t you?” Dan felt badly shooting down Beth’s solutions, after he’d created the problem. He never should have underestimated Paul’s ability to cause more trouble.
“Then what?” she said. “I’ve got Majel watching for him on external cameras. But he knows where those are. He’s sneaky enough to find a way to slip past them. I don’t like this, Dan.”
Dan sighed. He could hear the blame in her voice, and he deserved every drop of it. “I don’t either. Only one thing I can think to do.”
Dan went down the hall to the arms room. There was a bar grip in place on the wall, and with a grunt he pulled himself up from his wheelchair so that his eyes were level with the retinal scanner. The machine chirped acceptance, and the door slid open. He settled back into the chair and entered the tiny room, more like a closet really. The display was impressive; Andy had packed a lot into a small space. He grabbed two rifles and two of the combat vests, then backed out of the room into the hall.
Beth saw him coming with the rifles. “You can’t chase him down, Dan,” she said, her voice soft, her face sympathetic. “Not in that chair. And I need to work on the conduit.”
Pity, from Beth? Charming. Dan tossed her one of the rifles. She caught it easily. “I know that. Thought you should be armed, just in case. With Paul loose, I don’t want to take any chances, and there’s only a few rounds left in the pistol.” He handed her a vest, then slipped into his own, patting pouches where loaded clips held reloads for the rifle. He grabbed a headset and radio, studiously avoiding looking at Beth.
“So what are you doing, then?” she asked. Dan tried not to hear mockery in her voice, but failed.
He sighed. “You’re right. I can’t chase Paul down.” Thanks to the injury and the wheelchair. He thought he was over all this. He was back in space, piloting ships again. He was out exploring the galaxy! He’d been the first human ever to set foot on this rock! But the damned chair kept getting in his way, over and over. And now his carelessness had made him more of a liability than ever.
“But I can sit outside and watch for him, make sure he can’t mess with the ship. If I sit inside the cloak, I should see him a long time before he sees me. Especially with Majel watching the cameras.”
Beth looked like she was about to object again, so Dan cut her off. “I screwed up, and he got loose, Beth. I can’t fix the engines. So I need to do this.” He slapped the button to release the hatch. The ramp was still extended, and he rolled out without looking back. He let out his breath as the hatch ground shut again behind him. He didn’t want to see what was written on her face right now.
Some big hero. He’d been chuffed, figuring out a way to save Beth when she was trapped in the engine room. Now he’d been stupid and put her in danger all over again. She was scared of Paul. She was trying not to show it, but he could tell. And he’d allowed the man to get free, to plot some new scheme to make their lives miserable again. He knew that he was going to regret the impulse that made him wander away from his job to go chat with Beth. He could feel it in his gut.
But it was hard, seeing her every day. Being near her like this. The emotions he thought he’d locked away were still there, and they seemed as raw as they’d ever been.
He set himself up just forward of the engines. From there, at his seated height, he had a good view under the ship in all directions except the rear – and Majel had excellent camera coverage from that angle. He screwed up once, but there was no way he was going to let his guard down again. He made sure the safety was off on his rifle this time. If Paul came calling, he was going to put a few ounces of lead into the man, and then probably shoot him again just to be sure.
Sweat was already dripping down his face. Well, he’d been the one complaining about being bored. If this wasn’t a case of ‘be careful what you wish for; you might get it’, he’d never seen one. The ship didn’t cast any shade because of some quirk about how the cloaking device worked. No shadows. But the field of the cloaking device seemed to be blocking some of the heat from the sun anyway. He wouldn’t cook too quickly. Hopefully John and the others would be where he could cont
act them again soon, and then they could get the ship out of this place. Carefully cradling the rifle, he reached for the microphone key on his radio to try calling them. He needed to let the others know what was going on.
Before he could press it, though, Andy’s voice squawked over his headset. “Satori, we have a situation here.”
Eleven
“Yeah? So do we,” Dan replied over the radio.
“Bet ours is more interesting,” Andy said, working to keep his tone light. He finished tying the knots to hold one end of the rope around a large boulder.
“I’ll take that bet,” Dan said. “Paul got out.”
“What?” Andy dropped the rope, putting his full attention on the conversation. “Are you and Beth OK? Where’s Paul?”
Dan filled him in quickly. “So I want to take the Satori up, move us out of here. Meet you guys at a new location.”
“That works for me, Dan. We could use a pick up. We got attacked by big lizard-rat things.” Andy paused. There was silence over the line for a moment. Andy had to smile, thinking about the expression Dan had to be wearing just then.
“Are you pulling my leg, Andy?”
“Not about something like this. We’re all OK. But I’d feel better about not having to cross half the city again getting back to the ship. We killed the things that attacked us, but there could be more of them out there. How big a space do you need for a landing?” Andy eyeballed the street again. It was a big space, but with those towering buildings on either side, he wasn’t sure how well landing would work.
“I can maybe set her down in some of those main streets we saw as we landed, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dan said. “But I’d rather not, if we can avoid it. The ship flies well, but I haven’t had enough practice flying her in atmosphere yet.”
Andy looked down into the hole. Not a big drop, but they wanted to be able to get back out, too. Out was always the tricky part. He wasn’t thrilled about this side trip, to be honest. Too many things could go wrong. Ratzards – seemed like as good a name as any - could chew the rope. There could be more of them down there. The roof could come down; some of it already had when John fell through, so it obviously wasn’t very stable. Too many things to go wrong. Charline was excited by the prospect of getting inside somewhere that might have been sealed off from the environment for all these years, though, and John wanted to check it out too. So down they were going.
“OK, Dan.” Andy sighed. This felt like more risk than he was comfortable with, but it wasn’t his call. “We’re going to be underground for a bit. We’re going to see if a basement level leads into this unusual stone building we found – sending coordinates now. Charline is thinking there might be something of interest inside. John’s agreed to limit it to half an hour to look around, then we’re coming back out. We’ll figure out a pickup when we get back to the surface. Just...be ready to come running, OK? I’m not thrilled about this.”
“Gotcha. We’ll lift off and be on standby. Satori out,” Dan replied.
Charline looked at the rope Andy had tied, a bemused expression on her face. He’d pulled the thing from a pouch she hadn’t noticed before. It was plenty long enough to drop to the floor below, but it looked for all the world like a long shoe lace. It didn’t look like a climbing rope.
“How are we supposed to climb this? Is it even going to support our weight?” she asked Andy, trying not to sound as incredulous as she felt. The idea of trusting her life to that shoelace was uncomfortable.
“It’s got a hundred and fifty kilo test weight. Ought to hold all three of us. For climbing, we use these,” Andy replied, pulling two metal devices from the same pouch. Each had a big oval, shaped to fit a hand. “They’re mechanical ascender/descenders. Put the rope into this slot, lock it in place with this button. Then grab on, and press the button again. It’ll slowly lower you down the rope.” He demonstrated the procedure.
“OK, cool,” she said. “What about getting back up?”
Andy winced. “That’s a little harder. There are big motorized models that ascend automatically, but I didn’t have any room in my pocket for one of those,” he joked. “I’ll climb back up with these. It’s a little like climbing a rope with just your hands, but these give you a better grip. Then I’ll pull you up, and we can get John up between us.”
Charline still felt a little dubious about the rope, but Andy’s calm confidence was reassuring. Besides, she was burning to see what might be inside this building. She had a feeling it might be important. Trusting his explanation, she grabbed the device he’d already clipped onto the rope and eased herself backwards into the hole. Pressing the button on the gadget sent her gently to the floor below, just as Andy had said it would. She left the devices clipped to the rope and he pulled them back up. A minute later, and he was down as well.
John was waiting for them at the bottom, a mangled rifle cradled in his arms. Andy pulled his own rifle from where he’d slung it over his shoulder and raised it meaningfully, so Charline did the same with hers.
“Change magazines, too. So you’re full,” Andy said, putting actions to words. “We want to stay alert in here. It’s dark, and no telling if there are more of those things around.”
“My flashlight is dead,” John said. “You two have yours still?”
Both of them did, and pulled them out. Andy handed his to John so that he could carry his rifle at the ready. Together they carefully moved across the room, Andy in the lead and the other two following a step behind.
Their light revealed a long corridor on the other side of the arch. A number of doors lined the halls. John stopped at the first one they passed.
“Just a moment,” he said. He handed Charline his light and tried to open the door. It looked to Charline a lot like the doors at John’s lunar base; it split in the middle, and looked like it recessed into the walls somehow. But the doorway was odd, arched on both the top and bottom. It almost looked like a circle set into the wall. What sort of beings would use circles as doorways? John tried to pry the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Looks like they need to be powered up to work,” John said. “Can’t see any way to open them without it.” He sounded disappointed. She couldn’t blame him – what if everything in here was inaccessible for the same reason?
“Probably is one, and we’re just not seeing it. Maybe if Beth were here...” Charline said.
“Something for next trip, perhaps. Let’s keep moving,” John said.
They passed three doors on each side as they continued down the hall. Dust covered everything there in a thick layer. Charline didn’t think they’d see any more of the lizard things. It looked to her like nothing had been down here for a long time. No tracks stirred the dust except their own. The ceiling continued in a long arch overhead, about twelve feet up. The whole place had a venerable feel to it, like it was old even before most of the city around it had been constructed.
Then they reached the end of the arched hall and entered a room so large their flashlight beams were not reaching the far walls. The ceiling stayed about the same height. But most notable were the large blocks set all over the room at regular intervals. There were a score of the objects within the radius of their flashlights. Each was about the size of a dinner table. They were like enormous metal children’s blocks, neatly arranged. Each sat about two meters from the neighboring blocks, forming straight rows and columns.
Charline took the few steps toward the nearest of these, and heard her footsteps echo hollowly on the polished stone floor.
“Careful, Charline,” John said. “What do you think those could be?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, running her hand over the thing. “But they must be important, to be filling so much space here. And they’re certainly more interesting than anything else we’ve found.” Charline was glad they’d come. This place, these things, they’d been untouched for all the hundreds of years since this city’s destruction. Sealed off, they were probably still a lot like
they had been that long ago day. She felt certain they would find something worthwhile here, if only they knew where to look.
Twelve
Dan couldn’t help looking over his shoulder as he worked his wheelchair back up the ramp. He knew Majel was watching the cameras for Paul, knew there was no way the man could sneak up on him here. But that didn’t stop Dan from feeling incredibly exposed as he slowly made his way up the steep ramp.
Beth might have helped, if he’d called her over the radio. But the last thing he needed was to show her how useless he was. Finally, his hand slapped the door release.
He gasped with relief as cool air from inside the ship rushed out to greet him. He rolled back into the ship, feeling some of his frustration ebb away with the heat. He slapped the button to shut the door, and went forward to the bridge.
“Beth! We need to make liftoff right away,” he called out in a voice meant to carry to the engine room.
But she was already on the bridge, bent over a console.
“Yeah, I agree. Time to get the heck out of here,” she said, without taking her eyes from her screen. “But how did you know?”
“Know what?” Dan asked. “I reached Andy. They had some trouble, want us to stand by for a pick up.”
“Oh,” Beth said in a distracted voice.
“Beth, what the heck is up with you?” Dan went beside her to see what she was looking at. She was watching a radar screen, showing the airspace around them. It was pretty easy to read. Satori was dead center on the screen, and everything in the air nearby showed up with a number next to it showing relative altitude. When he’d last looked at the screen, there was nothing except the occasional satellite passing overhead. That had changed.
That had changed a lot.
Something very large was flying into radar range, about thirty miles above them and coming down fast. As he watched, the object broke apart, smaller bits flying off.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 16