by Stephen Cole
‘Maybe…’ Polly swallowed nervously. ‘Maybe whatever it was got Haunt too.’
The static stopped, replaced by the heavy silence of the tunnel.
‘Shade?’ Haunt’s voice from the communicator made them both jump.
‘Marshal, it’s Lindey. Dragged off, it was so fast…’
‘Get after her,’ Haunt snapped. ‘I’m on my way. Out.’
‘Come on,’ Shade said. He took Polly’s arm and they ran on together. The torch beam played crazily over the dark and jagged surface. The rock walls were moth-eaten with entrances to other tunnels, gaping open like mouths ready to suck them both inside.
There was a sudden scraping, rattling noise, and Shade ducked down. Polly gave a short shriek of alarm, but a moment later Shade was up again. ‘It’s all right. I dropped my palmscreen. Let’s go.’
They didn’t have much further to run before the darkness suddenly gave way to a thick, porridgey light. She and Shade had emerged into a vast vaulted chamber. It had five walls, stacked high with the familiar dark slates, though one was partially obscured by another of the extraordinary glass tapestries. The ceiling was heavy with the luminous weed. It hung down in sticky strands, and here and there on the smooth stone floor it lay in glowing heaps that were clustered with the pale insects. Five tall stone columns reached up from the stone-paved floor like huge candles, each one crowned with a pair of massive stone sculptures. Eerily lit from above, they reminded Polly of Renaissance cherubs grown fat and gone to seed. It must’ve been a statue of some kind she glimpsed back in the tunnel.
The chamber was otherwise empty and silent, save for the ghostly chiming of the tapestry fragments, disturbed as if by a breeze. There was no sign of Lindey.
Footsteps behind them made Polly jump. She saw Haunt tearing towards them, rifle raised, staring wildly around.
‘Where is she?’ Haunt demanded of Shade.
Shade shook his head but said nothing.
Haunt glared at Polly. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘There was no time,’ Polly murmured. ‘It all happened so fast.’
‘Too fast,’ Shade agreed. ‘She was just… taken.’
‘Taken by what, for God’s sake? By a droid? By the hand?’ Haunt’s voice rose a notch, and she slapped a palm angrily against Polly’s shoulder. ‘By the colour of this stupid spacesuit?’
‘There was nothing Shade could have done,’ Polly insisted.
Haunt grabbed hold of Polly’s chin and leaned in close. Her voice was low and threatening. ‘Listen to me. You do not speak for any of my squad. Never.’ Her eyes were dark, unblinking. ‘You follow me?’
Polly nodded mutely. Shade just looked on, apparently unmoved.
‘What is happening here?’
Polly could have cried with relief as the Doctor’s voice rang out imperiously around the chamber. Haunt widened her eyes in one more silent warning, then let Polly go.
‘There’s no sign of Lindey,’ Haunt snapped. Polly saw she was ignoring the Doctor and talking to Shel, who stood behind him. ‘Could whatever took her have got past you?’
‘No, Marshal,’ Shel answered. ‘We saw nothing.’
‘These tunnels interconnect,’ the Doctor added. ‘We crossed from ours to join yours. I imagine all the passages are joined, it’s quite a labyrinth.’ He nodded decisively.
‘Terrific. So Lindey has vanished, just like Denni. You saw nothing. Shade did nothing.’
‘Again,’ Polly heard Shade whisper. He absently itched one of the black ridges in his face, and quickly screwed up his eyes as if in pain.
As she wondered whether or not to place a consoling hand on his shoulder, she noticed his palmscreen fastened securely to his chunky belt.
And, peeping from his jumpsuit’s hip pocket, the shiny corner of an identical computer.
‘Are you all right, my dear?’ The Doctor had crossed, as quiet as a cat, to join her. Polly steered him discreetly over to one of the stone pillars.
‘Doctor,’ Polly whispered urgently. ‘I think Shade has got Lindey’s palm computer thing. She must’ve dropped it when she was…’ Her voice dried up, and she swallowed. ‘I think he found it in the tunnel and pretended it was his.’
The Doctor frowned. ‘Are you sure, child?’
She nodded. ‘So why hasn’t he told Haunt?’
‘Why indeed?’ muttered the Doctor. ‘I wonder…’
‘And when I first met him… When I was running from whatever that thing was that chased me away from the blue place…’ She looked wide-eyed at the Doctor. ‘It was Shade who brought the roof down on us, stopped me leading anyone there to see for themselves.’
‘You must tell me all that happened, Polly.’
She gladly obliged. It felt good to be able to tell the outlandish tale just as it happened and know that she was believed without question, taken deadly seriously. The Doctor always did that; made you the centre of his world whenever he looked at you.
When she’d finished, the Doctor simply nodded. ‘It sounds to me as if you stumbled upon a power source of some kind. Perhaps the very core of this subterranean citadel.’ He nodded again with satisfaction at this summation.
‘And someone else had found it too,’ Polly said, remembering the figure she’d seen through the blue haze. ‘Oh, this is a terrible place!’ She scratched the back of her neck. ‘There’s something here with us, I’m sure of it. Something… evil. Watching us all the time.’
The Doctor patted her absently on the shoulder. ‘We have eyes too,’ he said, ‘and we must use them well.’
Around her feet the white fleas hopped mindlessly. High above, the cherubim balanced precariously as if frozen in the midst of some joyful dance.
II
Ben felt like piggy in the middle, stuck between Tovel and Roba. The two men joked to keep their spirits up, but the conversation went right over Ben’s head. A good foot shorter than either of them, perhaps it was no surprise, he mused ruefully.
Suddenly the laughter stopped dead. Ben heard a scraping sound ahead of him, then silence.
There was a sound like a generator charging up, and then confused movement about him in the dark as Tovel pushed past to join Roba.
‘Keep down, Ben,’ Roba shouted. ‘Kill-Droid approaching.’
A red glow was creeping round the corner of the tunnel. Then it was lost in the flare of laser fire from the two soldiers. Ben shielded his face as splinters of rock showered over him, smelt chemical smoke from the glowing barrels of the guns. A large stone fell from the ceiling and struck his leg.
‘Go easy!’ Ben shouted. ‘You’ll bring the roof down on us!’
The gunfire stopped, as if they’d actually listened to him. The air was thick with dust. For a moment, all Ben could hear was Tovel and Roba’s ragged breathing.
‘We got it,’ Tovel said. ‘Sharp shooting, marksman.’
Roba coughed. ‘You sure we got it?’
‘We must’ve got it.’
Cautiously they advanced on the bend in the tunnel.
A rush of crimson coloured the walls. Something slammed into the two men, knocking them back.
In the red haze Ben could see a nightmare figure rounding the corner. It was huge, filling the tunnel. Its head was a great glass cylinder, the source of the infernal glow. Its body was the size of a chest freezer, chrome and gleaming, bobbing about on countless spidery limbs that seemed fashioned from tensile steel.
The machine whipped out a metal tentacle that ended in a cruel spike, one that looked easily big enough to skewer two heads in one go. Roba brought up his gun but the robot’s spike hooked it from his grip. With a flick, the gun clattered out of reach behind the thing.
Ben scrambled to his feet.
‘Here!’ Tovel shouted, and hurled his own rifle Ben’s way.
Before he could grab it, the robot flung out another tentacle and caught the gun like it weighed nothing.
Ben scooped his own gun from the tunnel floor and fired it, aiming for the
thing’s head. There was a noise like bullets firing and a lacklustre light flashed out from the gun’s tip, but he felt no recoil and the effect on the robot was disappointing to say the least. Ben thought the droid wasn’t even going to notice his attack, but finally its head rotated slowly round to face him.
‘That thing won’t scratch a Kay-Dee,’ Tovel gasped.
‘We must’ve damaged it,’ said Roba. ‘Or else why ain’t it firing no more?’
The robot now used Roba’s rifle as a club. Ben dived to the floor as the weapon whooshed over his head and smashed into the wall. Tovel and Roba were using the distraction to try and scramble out of the Kill-Droid’s way, falling over each other in the enclosed, suffocating space, choking on smoke and dust. When the thing advanced on them, Ben found himself directly in its way.
Desperately he wormed through the robot’s tangle of sinewy legs. His skin felt scorched by the fierce heat radiating from the machine’s gleaming body. He cried out as something hooked on his ankle and the flesh started to tear. But with his arms at full stretch, he felt the cold, solid bulk of Tovel’s rifle. Grabbing it, he jammed its barrel up what he hoped was the part of the Kill-Droid where the sun don’t shine.
This time when he fired, the results were a lot more spectacular.
Like a firework going off in a jam jar, the monster’s head exploded. A fog of red smoke escaped the shattered glass. Sparks shot out of the blackening neck. The twisting limbs stiffened and then buckled beneath the weight of the great chrome coffin above. Ben tried to work his way clear of the bulk as it teetered and rocked alarmingly above him, but something was still hooked in his left ankle, anchoring the thing to him.
‘Don’t let it fall on me, for God’s sake!’ Ben gasped. ‘I’ll be flattened!’
In the sputtering light of the sparks, Ben saw his own terrified reflection staring him out from the robot’s gleaming back. His distorted features grew closer, clearer, as the dead weight of the thing finally fell to crush him.
Inches from his face its fall was halted.
‘Get yourself free quickly,’ Ben heard Tovel gasp. ‘This thing weighs a tonne.’
Ben felt for the hook in his ankle and yanked it out. Raising himself on his elbows, biting his tongue to stop himself whimpering with the pain, he worked his way backwards a few feet along the tunnel.
‘All right, I’m clear!’ he yelled, but his cry was drowned out by the clang and clatter of the Kill-Droid as it smashed heavily into the ground, inches from his feet.
Ben breathed a long, long sigh of relief. ‘Thanks, fellas.’
‘Thanks yourself,’ Tovel replied, and Roba nodded. Despite the pain in his ankle, Ben felt a giddying rush of triumph. He’d sorted the War Machine’s big brother, and earned his place in the barracks. Having the friendship of this pair should make his stay here, and that of Polly and the Doctor, a little easier.
Roba studied the Kill-Droid’s inert body. ‘This thing’s loaded with different weapons, but the charges are all still full. Not a shot fired. Why didn’t it use them?’
‘It probably heard me telling you the whole roof would come crashing down,’ Ben called, gingerly feeling round his injured ankle. It didn’t feel too bad now. It just itched like hell.
‘You reckon this thing cares about a tonne of rubble on its head?’ Tovel clearly didn’t think so. ‘No, it must be the one me and Shade met before. We must’ve hit it.’
‘Whatever,’ Roba announced, raising his wrist to his mouth. ‘Looks like we’ve got a hell of a trophy to take back to Haunt.’
III
‘Good work, Roba. Out.’ Haunt smiled in triumph as she swung round to address Polly, the Doctor and Shade. ‘Roba reports a Kay-Dee down.’
‘No static blocking communications this time,’ the Doctor observed quietly.
‘Is Ben all right?’ Polly asked.
Haunt nodded. ‘The droid attacked them in the tunnel.’ She paused. ‘It must’ve killed Lindey first.’
Polly saw the Doctor shake his head at this. ‘We don’t know that for sure,’ he said.
‘You said yourself, these tunnels are connected.’ Haunt stared him down. ‘Can you give me an alternative explanation?’
‘Very well, if the droids did indeed kill Denni and Lindey,’ the Doctor said quickly, ‘then that mystery is solved. Will you now accept it is essential we learn our destination with all possible speed, and attempt to find a way of signalling for help from outside?’
Haunt seemed to consider his plea. ‘Shel, take the old man and the girl back to the control room,’ she said at last. ‘I’II contact the others. We’ll search on for the bodies of Lindey and Denni and meet you back there.’
Shel looked pale, his face covered in a sheen of sweat. ‘Marshal.’
They left Haunt in the vast chamber, alone with Shade, both as silent and still as one of the statues balanced on top of the pillars.
‘If it wasn’t the droid that murdered Denni and Lindey,’ Polly said nervously, ‘then what did?’
‘Or who?’ the Doctor muttered darkly.
Polly decided not to pursue her line of questioning. She was scared enough as it was. She shivered as Shel led them down the same tunnel that she had taken with Shade.
‘I do wish you could’ve seen the blue place, Doctor,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sure you would’ve understood it.’
‘Maybe so,’ the Doctor agreed loftily. ‘Young man,’ he added turning to Shel. ‘Would you be so kind as to attempt to contact someone on your communicator, hmm?’
Shel looked at him curiously but contacted Haunt. Her voice crackled through in response, partially obscured by the rhythmic shushing of the static.
‘A test only,’ Shel reported. ‘Out.’
‘The power source you mentioned, Doctor,’ said Polly. ‘Does that mean it’s growing fainter?’
‘Perhaps. But without a good deal of excavation, there is no way of retracing your footsteps to discover the truth. We should continue to the main control room.’ He sighed heavily, impatiently shrugged off his frock coat. His long white hair was clinging to his damp forehead. ‘We must see what is happening back there.’
Polly nodded, and followed after the silent Shel.
Her arms itched. The fleas, she thought. They must bite. She ruminated gloomily on the red lumps that would soon cover her as they trekked back to the control room.
They’d got as far as the bullring when the itching was replaced by a prickling sensation at the sound of flashbulbs charging.
‘Doctor!’ she yelled. ‘That sound…’
‘Down!’ yelled the Doctor, flinging himself to the rocky floor.
Polly copied him, her cushioned suit protecting her from the gravelly floor. She felt a heat like sunlamps on the back of her neck.
All she could see was a crimson wash filtering into her vision, and the rising whirr of something huge and heavy approaching.
‘D- Droid.’ Shel reached for his gun.
Polly stared in horror as this ‘droid’, a chugging red colossus as big as a department store lift, stole into the rocky ring on angle-poised legs and swivelled its heavy glassy head from side to side in search of what it could crush first.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BURDEN
I
SHEL LEVELLED HIS rifle and fired blast after white-hot blast at the robot. The droid hunched on its many legs like a spider that knows itself discovered, then lashed out a steel tentacle that swiped the gun from Shel’s grip. A splatter of blood from his arm slopped onto the floor, but Polly heard no sound of a cry.
The Doctor was back on his feet. He flapped his heavy frock coat at the creature like a matador waving his cloak before an enraged bull.
‘Run, Polly,’ the Doctor insisted. He looked at her pointedly, sheltering behind his coat. Did he think that if he couldn’t see the robot it couldn’t see him? ‘As fast as you can.’
Polly rose to her feet and prepared to run for the jagged hole in the ring that led to the passagew
ay stretching back to the control room. As she did so, a metal fist punched the Doctor through his coat. Silently he doubled up and collapsed.
The robot sidled up to his prone body. Two flexible probes that ended in gleaming surgical blades emerged from its silvery trunk and hovered over the Doctor, as if about to carve a roast.
Then a grating noise somewhere between an alarm clock and an egg timer burst out into the shadowy bullring. Polly saw the woman called Frog come charging into the rocky arena, screaming. She fired blast after blast from a rifle she clutched in just one hand.
The robot spun round to face her, leaving the Doctor unguarded. Polly swiftly ran over to him, as he lay winded on the floor. She gripped his hand; it was cold, clammy, heavily veined. And as he rose she saw his face. Lined, parchment-thin skin. Eyes like dark beads rolling in his head as he recovered his wits. For a moment she wanted to recoil from him as something almost alien, but he held his hand out to her, a pathetic gesture for help, and she took it. His grip on her arm was feeble as he held on to her, gasping for breath, an ordinary old man again.
Frog had been joined by Creben and Joiks, each firing their guns at the droid, trapping it in a circle of fire, blasting at it again and again until its devil-red haze faded, its movements became weak and clumsy. Unable to resist the hail of fire, its legs splayed and it crashed heavily to the ground.
The Doctor seemed to draw strength from the mechanical creature as it flailed helplessly on the floor. His breathing became more regular, and he smiled at Polly with something approaching pride, as if every breath he drew demonstrated superiority over his fallen foe. He scratched at the back of his neck, reminding Polly she was still itching all over too. Just her luck if the fleas were poisonous.
Shel stared down dispassionately at both the silent machine and at the puncture wound in his arm.
Joiks shot a pointed glance at the Doctor. ‘I think he could use you.’
‘I am not a doctor of medicine.’ The Doctor shook his head wearily. ‘However, his combat suit will compress the flesh around the wound, will it not? To stem the blood flow?’
Creben nodded. ‘And this should help. Medikit.’ He pulled a slim metal box from a pouch on his harness and stepped forward to examine the wound. Shel recoiled, began nursing the injury as if he’d only just become aware of it.