Runaway: Assignment Darklanding

by Scott Moon

  When nothing happened, he continued his exploration. There were no windows or doors or sensors that he could find. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it was just a perfectly smooth piece of metal dropped to the bottom of a seemingly—until now—endless mineshaft.

  He touched the wall and tried to meditate for several minutes. Moving by instinct, he reached the ladder on which he had descended. There was nothing more he could do here. It did not feel as though his vision quest was done, but he decided to go back up a failure.

  It was on the way up that Mast saw the first spider web. “This does not seem fair. Why did I not see this on the way down?”

  A rainbow of dark colors shimmered through the geometric patterns.

  “No, no, no!” His voice boomed into the open space and something skittered just out of vision. Above and below him, the sounds rolled like a wave of hunting arachnoids.

  “Now I must be hallucinating,” he said.

  Something small darted across his hands. He let go, falling and catching himself by his feet, which had been planted between the rungs of the ladder. He cried out as pain flashed through his feet, knees, and hips, and he grunted when his head hit the wall.

  He didn’t think he hung there for a long time, but when he started to move, the spiders were beyond his vision, sounding farther away and less real.

  He climbed for the better part of an hour before he made the mistake of looking down. Behind him marched a river of spiders. He was leading them to the surface.

  “No! Stop! You cannot follow me,” Mast said.

  The thick blanket of little monsters stopped and stared at him with thousands upon thousands of eyes. If Mast Jotham were not an Unglok, he would see nothing in this black abyss. What he did see was grim and blurry and full of many-faceted eyes.

  Some of the creatures closer to the ship seemed too large. Too large for what? Mast wondered.

  “When will this vision quest be over?”

  The strange creatures did not answer or move. He stared at them for a long time before resuming his ascent to the surface.

  Come down to see us, the voice said again.

  Mast Jotham continued to climb and mutter to himself. I’ve already been down to see you. And I don’t think you’re real. Can’t be real.

  The ovoid ship groaned below him. It was a Leviathan in machine form. Nothing in his imagination compared to the alien artifact. More of the A19 drifted up behind him, rising faster than he could climb. Something told him the dust-gas would kill him this time.

  Tears filled his eyes. He was already doomed. That was the peculiar terror of A19—if it was A19. Slow or fast, it took all its victims in the end. Have you breathed this cursed air, Lingviat? Did you know what I was to face at the bottom?

  This was the stupidest place on the planet for an Unglok to go on a vision quest. He needed to lodge a complaint with someone. Maybe Lingviat would be moved to a small parish in the mountains. Maybe a new quest-master would be kinder.

  Come down, the voice insisted.

  “That would kill me and you know it,” Mast said. He did not like talking to this voice in his head. The sooner he could reach the surface of Ungwilook the better.

  Mast squinted against the light long before he reached the top of the shaft. Strange things happened to his physiology. His spirit quest was complete. Something had changed inside of him, physically and emotionally.

  “I am muchly hungry,” he said, making the change back to the human language in anticipation of resuming his deputy sheriff duties.

  Blisters broke on his hands, feet, and knees where they had rubbed the ladder during his ascent. He exhaled forcefully and thought that much A19 was purged from his lungs. It was best not to think about being poisoned. For the last one hundred rungs of the ladder, he imagined falling all the way down. Surely his strength would give out and his spirit quest would end in death.

  He crawled over the lip of the shaft, entering the long horizontal tunnel that led to the cliff face of the mesa on which Darklanding had been built. Slowly, he opened his eyes and found Lingviat waiting for him. The holy man stood in full ceremonial robes, chin tucked down as he slept while standing upright.

  Mast did not try to stand. He rolled onto his side and breathed air that was not foul with the dust of the vision quest shaft. He calmed himself and understood he had been free of the cloud for a very long time. A19 was heavy and sank to the lowest places, whether that be the bottom of Transport Canyon or the vision quest shaft.

  Lingviat maintained his sleeping stance. Mast wrinkled his face in annoyance. Climbing to his feet was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Lights flashed across his vision in rhythm with his heartbeat. It was like being strangled or punched hard in the face. He didn’t like it.

  “I think I will just walk past you, Lingviat. I am not thinking I want to talk to you anyway,” Mast said.

  “Your vision quest is complete,” Lingviat said without opening his eyes. The rhythm of his breathing changed slightly, but other than that, he was motionless.

  “I do not like you right now,” Mast said. “There are horrible things at the bottom of the shaft. Did you not know this?”

  “I suspected as much. How far did you go? Days have passed since you went into the darkness,” Lingviat said.

  Mast swayed on his feet and did not want to answer. He wanted to eat and found it exceedingly rude that the holy man was not waiting with food and water. “I think I might die of hunger and dehydration. Why do you not have food for me?”

  The Unglok holy man opened his eyes and stared at him coldly. “You dare disrespect me?”

  “Yep,” Mast said, imitating the human word perfectly. “I will continue to disrespect you until I have food and water. If you do not have those things, please stand aside.”

  “We must speak of your quest. I must help you understand the visions in your head. Do not gamble with your sanity.”

  Mast walked past the holy man, relieved he did not have to push him out of the way. That would’ve been too much. He was angry and frustrated, but did not want to become an outcast.

  “I can smell the poison dust on you. Is the bottom of the shaft polluted with A19?” Lingviat asked.

  “Muchly. And there are spiders and creatures and a very old ship at the bottom. I might’ve said more if you had been waiting for me with food to keep me from dying of starvation,” Mast said.

  “Stop!” Lingviat yelled.

  Mast had never heard him yell. He turned to look at the old man.

  “The poison that humans call A19 will kill you. I smell it on your breath and in your sweat,” Lingviat said.

  Mast stared at him without speaking.

  “It will kill you!”

  The moment passed slowly and Mast was very sad. When he spoke, he forced his voice to be strong and clear. “Yes, but not today.”

  * * *

  Mast staggered into the Mother Lode. Pierre looked at him sternly, then escorted him to a room in the back near the kitchen. Mast faded in and out of consciousness. When alert enough to hold the glass, he drank clear water and a fermented fruit concoction similar to water kefir called Tigi that only Ungloks knew about. There was an added plate of meats and cheeses, human food that Ungloks could digest.

  He looked up at Pierre. “Where did you find Tigi? It is truly delightful. The restorative properties are just what I need.”

  Pierre stared at him through narrowed eyes for a moment. “So that is Tigi. I thought the Unglok who sold it to me was pulling a scam. Not that I can resell it. It would bring far too many of your people to the Mother Lode and drive away my human customers.”

  “This is true. But no Unglok would drink it from you unless they were very thirsty and on the verge of death. My attitude is different because I am a doomed creature,” Mast said. "And I spend too much time with humans."

  “That stuff smells awful, by the way,” Pierre said. “I’ve got to get back to work. Are you okay?”

  Mast nodded. That was the ge
sture humans made in this situation, he was pretty sure. His memory was a bit sketchy since finding the…ship? He tried to remember the bottom of the shaft and shuddered violently.

  “Calm down there, Mast Jotham,” Pierre said. “I can't have Ungloks dying in my establishment. That’s how rumors get started.”

  Mast Jotham gathered himself. “I am muchly improved. Allow me to finish this drink, and I will leave. Can you tell me where I can find Sheriff Fry? It is time I went back to my duties.”

  He ate and drank with reckless abandon, forcing nutrients into his stomach faster than his body could process them. There was an Unglok phrase—eat like a child. He laughed as he stuffed himself. There would be consequences, but right then, he didn’t care. What was an upset tummy when he had just survived a truly epic vision quest?

  Afterward, the walk through Darklanding was strange. It seemed many things had changed. The jail and the ruined building next to it were completely gone. All that remained was a foundation where a prefabricated structure could be placed. By the look of the foundation, he guessed that Thaddeus was planning on using a blast-proof structure, maybe something modified from an explosives storage unit.

  He looked at the ground and saw there were lots of dents in the asphalt. Heavy machinery had been here recently. He began to get a bad feeling. To his keen Unglok eyes, it seemed this facility had been put in place and then removed. Why would Thaddeus do that?

  He lingered for a while to learn what he could of the situation, but found nothing. The area was oddly deserted. He ambled back toward the Mother Lode with grave thoughts.

  He found Pierre arguing with Thaddeus about whether he could have a drink of whiskey. It seemed there had been some strange rule preventing the sheriff from consuming alcohol.

  “Many terrible things must’ve happened while I was away on my vision quest,” he said to himself.

  CHAPTER TEN: Escape

  “How long do we have to wait, Smash Face?” Stacy “White Skull” Rings asked. He sat on the stool next to the upended desk. Once the Unglok confederates had started moving the building, safety overrides had opened all the doors inside. It had been a bumpy ride. Bruises covered his knees and hands from falls during the first chaotic minutes of the escape. As dangerous as the ride had been, they had not been moving fast. Every second, he had feared that Sheriff Fry would descend upon them and shoot to kill.

  His Unglok partner refused to answer. The big dummy stood staring at the door. White Skull was starting to worry. Had his new partner’s people changed their minds? Maybe he hadn’t paid them enough for a complete escape. Perhaps they didn't fear him as much as Monnik claimed they did. Moving the prison was all fine and dandy unless they left the doors locked.

  White Skull’s leg bounced rapidly as he fought to control the nervous tension flowing through his body. Coffee and liquor pumped through his veins. Neither item had been part of his prison diet, so finding them in Thaddeus’s desk had been like hitting the jackpot. He had known chugging caffeine and alcohol was a mistake, but he did it anyway.

  He stood and took tour of the facility, peering in each of the cells and laughing at the other prisoners that he had locked up after the move. They had nothing to offer him, so why give them freedom? Human and Unglok faces stared out at him resentfully. He gave each of them a one-fingered salute and laughed.

  He strutted back into the main room, jumpsuit open nearly to his waist to show his muscles, tattoos, and scars. The Unglok paid no attention to him. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

  Monnik turned slowly. His nearly human features became suddenly unnerving to White Skull. The eyes—deep black as pitch—stared at him with murderous intensity. On a human, his muscle density would not be intimidating, but the contrast with what his race was supposed to look like had a uniquely disturbing quality. What had happened to this Ungwilook man to make him so tough?

  “No more talk from you Stacy-Stan,” the Unglok said. “I wait for true brothers. They will come.”

  White Skull laughed. “Whatever.”

  The Unglok stomped forward, fists clenched. “My brothers come. They free me. Maybe free you.”

  “You need me to get past the humans, remember?” White Skull said.

  The Unglok made a gurgling sound in his throat that might’ve been laughter or sarcasm. “Maybe Monnik take chances.”

  “You never told me what Monnik means in your language. Don’t worry about it. I know. It has to mean stupid. Maybe even stupid and afraid,” White Skull said.

  “What you say?”

  White Skull repeated the question mockingly. They needed to get this out of the way. He’d known for the last two hours there was going to be a fight, a showdown between them to establish dominance.

  The Unglok rushed forward with a complicated and surprisingly graceful attack. It was like King Kong 37 in a kung fu movie. He shifted sideways and deflected a kick. The low block, more of a parry against the huge leg, left his face exposed to the Unglok’s fist. The punch grazed his cheek.

  White Skull counter-attacked violently, launching right and left thrust-punches as fast as he could. All of them struck the Glok’s torso. Monnik didn’t seem to notice.

  “You touched me with your attack. That is good. Maybe I not kill you.”

  White Skull dropped low and dove forward, tackling the Unglok at his lanky knees. They hit the ground together and he scrambled over his opponent, trapping arms and punching Monnik in the face as soon as he had a chance.

  They rolled across the floor punching, kicking, and biting each other. Pent-up aggression exploded in their combat and their cursing. Before long, they were covered in sweat and could barely hold onto each other.

  White Skull scrambled free and jumped up. He set his feet in a kickboxer’s stance and raised his fists to guard his face. On the other side of the small room, Monnik did something similar.

  “All right. You’re tough, I knew you were. Let’s make a deal.”

  The Unglok chattered at him in the language of Ungwilook. White Skull rested as he waited for his fellow prisoner to calm down.

  “Stacy-Stan-Skull get me past humans. Then we go away from each other,” Monnik grunted, breathing hard.

  White Skull shrugged. “Fine. When the hell can we get out of here?”

  “Must wait. Monnik's people no find codes of door, Monnik think. Must find cutting torch. This dark part of the spaceport. No one see us for years.”

  “That’s great. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get out of here before then,” White Skull said.

  “Yes. Sooner us part ways. Better, better.” The Unglok went back to staring at the door. Blood ran down his face from the wounds.

  White Skull took one of the extra fire coats from a locker and made himself comfortable in a chair near Thaddeus’s overturned desk, propping his feet up to examine the stolen boots that fit better than he could have hoped. He started opening drawers, causing the contents to spill out everywhere.

  Frustrated, he started searching the coat and eventually found what he was looking for—a small metal flask of what he hoped was more whiskey.

  He opened it, sniffed the contents, and smiled. A second later, all of the lights in the makeshift prison facility went out.

  * * *

  It was the middle of the night before Monnik’s people returned. White Skull fell out of his chair when he woke to the sound of cutting torches slicing through the wall. He raised one hand to protect his eyes from the glare as a new door was made around the original. The entire frame fell outward.

  In seconds, the air was full of churning smoke.

  “Monnik tell you they come,” the Unglok said.

  White Skull stood up and put on the fire coat. “What you mean to say is, I told you they would come. Stick with me and I’ll make a proper gentleman out of you someday.”

  “Monnik is not gentle,” Monnik said.

  White Skull moved close to the door, looking out without exposing himself more than necessary.
“Where are your friends?”

  Monnik shook his head. “They have done much. They go home.”

  “I’m good with that,” White Skull said.

  “Now, Skull-Stan-Stacy-Weakling, do your part,” Monnik said. “Get us out Darklanding.”

  White Skull hurried to the door and away from the extremely obvious building. It was in the middle of a slum, taking up most of a parking lot. There were abandoned vehicles everywhere and trash cans that had been used for warming fires. The scene was familiar and dangerous at the same time. This was a place where unemployed Gloks gathered to do whatever they did at night. Caught between their old world and the human's new industrial machine, the youthful Gloks clustered into strange gangs with a culture all their own. He didn’t feel like humans came here often.

  “I'm feeling out of my element here,” he said.

  Monnik snorted. “Move. Get to the humans and past them. Then Stacy-Stan leave Monnik.”

  They jogged through abandoned streets. Ungloks stared from the windows of dingy apartment structures. None of the buildings were tall because the Ungloks liked to build into the ground. They loved being belowground. That was one of the reasons they were such good miners, if the idiots at SagCon could admit they were superior at the most important job on the planet.

  White Skull understood this, but didn’t like them any better. He didn’t like anyone. Life was about getting what you wanted, and so far, no one had helped him get anything. He led the way toward the Mother Lode.

  “No. This not good way,” Monnik said.

  “You need to get out of Darklanding. I need to get off the planet. To do that, we need a hostage,” White Skull said.

  “What is hostage?” Monnik said.

  White Skull stopped in the shadows across from the saloon. There were supposed to be lights on the street, but they were never replaced. Many of the regular patrons required anonymity, and the proprietor of the Mother Lode valued profit over security.

  “What we doing?” Monnik asked.

  “Remember when you stared at the door for hours? That’s what we're doing now.”