by John Shirley
Afterward, Marla found food and water for them in the outriders, and they rested in the shade within the hidden entrance—once Roland and Cal had dragged away the bodies of the stalkers and made sure no others were lurking around.
Then, well armed with the weapons of the fallen men, they climbed the winding stone ramp, Marla following Roland and Cal. They worked their way up the narrow canyon to the lava fields near the base of the cinder cone. Roland examined the ground closely in the failing light—and found traces where someone else had recently gone through.
“Two men, if my guess is right,” he said, straightening up from the trail. “Worked their way toward that slope over there.”
Marla looked doubtfully at the roseate sky, the failing light. “You think we can get through this before it gets dark? The ground’s all so sharp and rugged—it’d cut us up pretty badly.”
“I want to go on!” Cal insisted. “My dad is there somewhere, I know it!”
“We can’t be sure that’s where he is,” Marla said. “He might be.”
Roland smiled. “I think we’ll make it if we use these.” He reached into a coat pocket and took out three small flashlights. “They were in the outriders. One each. Just move careful …”
They set off, treading carefully in the rugged landscape, occasionally receiving contusions on sharp volcanic rock; barking their shins on shadowy stone edges. It was awkward, carrying both the flashlights and the weapons—Cal carried Mash’s shotgun, and one of Vance’s pistols; Marla carried the Cobra; Roland had the Stomper in his hands, the Eridian gun strapped across his back, and pistols on his hips.
By the time they reached the slope, and the smoother lava-flow pathway, they were painfully contused and a little battered. But Cal didn’t complain, Marla noticed.
It was dark, the crescent moon not giving much light. Stars offered some illumination, from this vantage; high above the dusty plain, constellations clustered like extravagant jewelry and shone out with an almost violent effulgence.
“Better switch off the flashlights,” Roland said, cutting his own. “Don’t know when we might run into Crannigan. I want to see him before he sees me. Last I knew we were still allies. But you never can tell. And I’m not sure how he’ll feel about Marla here.”
They rested a little—and then pressed on, soon coming to the deep stony gulch, and the view on the interior of the broken-open cinder cone. Here they stopped and gazed at the glowing natural amphitheater of the broken volcano. At night it was like looking into a sliced-open geode. The shadowiness of the amphitheater was interrupted by glimmers; glowing, oddly shaped objects scattered about the debris field and, farther back, a strong but fluctuating glow from an object that was difficult to identify. The curved, smooth object in the back was large—big enough to be a starship, by Marla’s reckoning.
“That must be it!” Cal said excitedly. “You see it, back there? It’s big as a freighter, at least!”
“Keep your voice down, kid,” Roland growled softly. “Don’t want Crannigan to hear us.”
“I thought you were working with him …”
“Let’s get a handle on what’s up with Crannigan before we partner up with him again. There’s a whole ’nother factor I’ve been half-expecting …” He glanced up at the sky.
“So much for my plan,” Marla said. “I was going to start yelling for Zac.”
“Not a good idea, and not just because of Crannigan. Those stalkers must have a den around here. Might be more of them. The creepy little bastards sneak up on you.”
“I’m not sorry they killed that eye-patch guy,” Cal said, his voice flat; his eyes cold.
Marla looked at him with concern. What had Pandora done to her son? And to her, really. Cal was in survival mode, and maybe that was good. Maybe it had gotten him through. But would she ever get her child back?
Cal was peering around. He looked disappointed. “Thought I’d see my dad here …”
“Your pa was here, boy,” said a voice in the darkness. “Now he’s back there, somewhere, I reckon. With the ship.”
“Flatten down!” Roland ordered, pointing both his gun and his flashlight toward the sound of the voice. He clicked the flashlight on, and a grizzled old man with a hat made of animal skin blinked at them, put up a hand against the glare.
“Take that damn light out of my eyes!”
Roland lowered the light out of his face but kept the old man in its illumination. The old man had a combat rifle—but it wasn’t pointed at anyone. “Come over here,” Roland ordered. “Now. Hands up—or I’ll cut you down! And I don’t care how good your shield is!”
“Damn shield’s not much use now,” the old man grumbled. He came down the path, into a patch of light from the moon and stars. He was a weathered old man, but his eyes were bright.
“You say something about my dad, mister?” Cal asked.
“Yeah. I did. If you’re Cal Finn and I figure you orta be.”
“I am, yeah, and this is Roland and my mom—Marla Finn.”
Berl clumsily tipped his scruffy hat to Marla. “I’m Berl. I traveled with your husband. I can tell you, he was set on getting back to you. We had our differences, Zac Finn and me. But in the end—he saved my life. Maybe sacrificed himself to do it. I’m not sure he’s …” He shrugged. “I don’t know. The monitor grabbed him, and took him in that spaceship, over there. Or whatever that thing is. I’ve got my doubts.” He sighed. “It’s a sad day. He was the closest thing I had to a friend, except for Bizzy. And I lost both of them to that space demon down there.”
“Did you actually see Zac get killed?” Marla asked, her mouth suddenly so dry she could hardly get the words out.
“No, lady, I didn’t. Just saw him carried off. I don’t know, maybe he’ll get out of there. He’s a resourceful kinda guy. Went through a lot. Got away from me one time when I had him tied up. The scamp.”
Cal scowled. “What’d you tie him up for?”
“Decided I didn’t trust him. Guess the jury’s out on that. But he’s a pretty good sort. Like I said, he came back for me when he didn’t have to. Lured ’em away so I could sneak out … but they got him instead. Carried him off … You got anything to drink? Of an alcohol-based nature, I mean?”
He looked hopefully at Roland, who shook his head. “I’ve heard of you. Berl. The ghost of the badlands.”
Berl grinned crookedly. “Might as well be one. Probably be one for real soon enough.” He looked at them—his gaze weighing Cal, Roland, and Marla. “Not comfortable around so big a crowd as this …”
“We gotta sneak in that ship and get my dad out!” Cal declared, turning to Roland. “We can’t leave him in there. He could be trapped!”
Roland shook his head. “I’m not going to put you in a trap to get him out of one. That thing, whatever it is, appears to be dangerous. I need time to think. We’ll make camp behind that boulder, over there, just off the trail. And we’ll figure this out …”
They made a cold camp, hunkered on graveled volcanic rock in the chilly shadow of a boulder, a few paces off the trail. They passed around skag jerky and water. Berl offered them Primal testicles. Marla and Cal said no; Roland cheerfully accepted one. “Like to bite one off the Primal bastard that blew up my partner …”
Cal suffered Marla to hold him against her, and fell asleep. She slept fitfully and woke when it was still dark, just before dawn. She thought she was dreaming, at first, when she saw the spacecraft coming down through the atmosphere, at first just a light, then taking shape as it descended, slowing its descent with pulsers. It was shaped like a step pyramid, point upward, but made of a gray-blue metal. A logo on the side of the vessel might say Atlas but she couldn’t be sure. She recognized it as one of the larger orbital shuttles. In orbit it docked within a much larger spacecraft—which meant there was a starship up there.
She glanced over at Roland, and saw him watching it too. The shuttle descended till the top of the boulder blocked it from sight.
Rola
nd got up and moved silently toward the trail. Marla eased Cal onto the gravel. Cal curled up, head pillowed on his arm, reluctant to fully wake.
She followed Roland out into the cool air of morning, onto the dewy lava-flow path. A gray light picked out enough of the ground so they could make their way to the edge of the cliff overlooking the deep stone gulley.
Down below they saw the orbital shuttle landing on a flattened spot in the scree, whining as it settled down, its pulsers ruffling up a cloud of dust. Nearby, apparently waiting for it to land, was a group of three men.
“That’s Crannigan, Rosco, and Rans Veritas,” Roland said. “Seems like Crannigan went behind my back and contacted Atlas. They told us a lander couldn’t get this close. Either they were lying about that—or something’s changed.”
“That shuttle. Is it—?”
“Yeah, it is. Atlas Corporation. Executive Shuttle. Meaning it’s got Atlas execs in it—some of the most sneaky, treacherous sons of bitches around.”
Zac blinked, his eyes stinging as he woke. He groaned, realizing that the alien had effortlessly put him to sleep again. It made him feel completely helpless. The thing could switch him off and on like a lamp.
He looked around, feeling sick. He was inside the alien. Maybe the damned thing, in time, was going to digest him.
But he didn’t think that it had lied to him. That voice—it was impossible to imagine that voice lying. The alien would do what it had said it would: if it decided to kill him, he’d become part of some biological sample collection, somewhere. Like the preserved animals he’d seen in natural history museums …
How could he be inside the creature—and in a chair?
But it wasn’t organized like the animals he was familiar with. It had just as much control of its insides as its outsides. It could change the shape of its “interior storage spaces.” He was sure that “the monitor” was in fact an extension, telepathically controlled, of the alien. It was as if it could send its eye out, flying around on its own, and its eye could see things for it, and pick things up, bring them back, and store them in a compartment inside it.
Now, that’s pretty damn alien, Zac thought.
Maybe he could escape. Maybe the alien’s attention was occupied elsewhere. It wasn’t omniscient. It had limitations. Maybe he’d awakened on his own and he could slip out of this chair and find some way out …
He tried to stand—and was sucked back down onto the chair, by a force that was like a very specific gravitation.
“I have not yet released you,” said the alien, in his mind. “I am aware of your thoughts, your motions. You cannot surprise me.”
He felt like sobbing. But all he had left was his dignity. So, hoarsely, he said, “You going to tell me now what you’re doing with me? You going to kill me? You promised me a painless death, remember …”
“I have not yet decided. Decisions that involve life and death, with us, are generally thought over, not decided impulsively—we are not impulsive like your jackass knucklehead people.”
“Hey—you’ve got that sneering tone again. Listen, you creatures evolved too, didn’t you, from simpler forms. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Well don’t you think you guys were jackass knuckleheads at some point? You know—in an earlier stage of evolution? Come on, fair is fair. Easy to sneer at a lower order of being. You think I bother to sneer at ants?”
To his surprise, the alien seemed to hesitate. “You actually have a point. That’s not quite enough to show you have that Hidden Thing of Interest—but it’s enough to add a little bit to the scale on the side of keeping you alive longer.”
Zac felt a flicker of hope. “Look—I’m convinced I did wrong in coming here! I repent! I shouldn’t have messed with you. Let me go, and I won’t touch your … your parts. You can gather them up and you can go home, when you’re finished regenerating or whatever. And I’ll try to make my people better. Just … give me a chance.”
“It’s not a case of being ‘better.’ It’s a case of being worth bothering with at all, really.”
“Listen, we’ve got all kinds of good stuff you’re not aware of. We’ve got art, poetry, music … good stuff. Even some philosophy. I’ve heard.”
“I’m aware of some of your music through your mind. It’s low-dimensional.”
“I might not be the best source for appreciating our musical gifts. Listen—I can’t stand this anymore. Just tell me what you plan.”
“It depends on the others. You, yourself, are too ambiguous. I wish to see what those others out there will do. The ones gathered nearby. There’s a woman, a young one, two men, on the cliff above; there are three others below. There is an orbit shuttlecraft I invited and which I’ve allowed to land, in which still other men arrive.”
“You invited the shuttle?”
“I transmitted a message to it, to the effect that the previous barrier against landings nearby, from orbit, has been lifted. I want a few more of you creatures to examine. It keeps me busy while I conclude regeneration. I’ll decide if I should destroy them—or permit them to go on. I don’t wish them to know too much about me. Unless they have the Hidden Thing of Interest. In which case—”
“Wait—did you say a woman and a child? Do you know their names?”
“No.”
Could it be them? He’d sent his wife the coordinates. Could it be really be Marla and Cal—and an orbital lander? Could it be that help was outside and it was just beyond his reach? His family might be there, close by, yet impossible to reach …
… because he was trapped by an alien who was still deciding if he would live, or die.
A sparse trail, probably left by animals, threaded down the steep slope of the gulch under the debris field. Roland descended on the animal trail, sometimes almost having to rock-climb to get down, sliding a little, ducking behind outcroppings and scrub whenever he thought he was too easily visible from the floor of the gulch. He didn’t want Crannigan to know he was coming any sooner than necessary.
When he got to the bottom, Roland heard a whirring sound coming from up the gulch, near the orbital lander. He hunkered down behind a rock as something passed over, its shadow flickering by. He looked to see what it was—but it was gone. Maybe a scouter platform. Not good. Whoever was on it could be up to anything—but his first guess would be that they were on their way to scout the debris field. No way he could catch up with the platform. He hoped Marla and Berl and the kid had the sense to keep their heads down when the scouter platform floated by them.
Roland got up and jogged toward the lander, which glinted in the morning sun. A little farther and he came to the edge of the flattened bowl in the gulch, where he saw Crannigan, Rosco, and Rans talking to Gorman, the young suit from Atlas on the vehicle’s ramp, about twenty meters off. The sleek young man might not be a young man at all, of course. Atlas execs were comped the best rejuvenation—this man could be two hundred years old.
Roland flattened in a small copse of plants, like a canebrake that grew where a stream sometimes cut through the gulch. The streambed was now dry. He’d better keep an eye on it—it could suddenly erupt with scythids or spiderants.
Behind Gorman stood one of the armored bodyguards. This one was in red-tinted full body armor. It wasn’t impossible that he might be a robot—but more likely he was Crimson Lance elite. The bodyguard carried an Atlas AR24 Glorious Ogre combat rifle, which looked almost small in his big metal-gauntleted hands. His helmet, the face completely shuttered behind darkened glass, kept turning as he scanned the area for threats.
How many bodyguards did Gorman bring this time? Roland wondered. This bodyguard in the red-tinted armor seemed different than the other two he’d seen the last time. The elite had the best shields. Did Crannigan really have a plan for taking them down when he made his move? The armored elite wouldn’t die easily.
The smart thing to do, Roland figured, would be to walk away from this whole thing right now, take Marla and Cal back to New Haven
whether they wanted to or not. They should all admit they couldn’t help Zac and just say the hell with Crannigan, Atlas, armored bodyguards, Rosco, and the extraterrestrial crash site. Because if he stayed and took this bull by the horns, he was caught between whatever was in that alien ship, and the armored elite.
But he’d befriended that kid. And once Roland made a friend—he was stuck. It’s just the way he was.
He sighed. He wasn’t going to do the smart thing. He was going to step right into the hornet’s nest.
Roland waited till the red-armored elite was turned to look another way—then he stood slowly up and started walking toward the group of men, his rifle in his hands but pointed unthreateningly at the ground.
“I’m comin’ in, Crannigan!” he called.
Startled, Crannigan and the others turned and stared at him. The elite raised his rifle and trained it on Roland, covering him. His amplified voice came from his helmet. “You know this one, sir?”
“Yes,” Gorman said, seeming amused as Roland strolled up. “I’ve just been told that he was dead.”
Rans, his face twitching, looked especially uncomfortable at the sight of Roland.
Roland figured the only way into that alien ship would be with enough firepower. Maybe if he got in with this bunch, he could get Zac Finn out alive. Reunite the kid with his old man.
Roland, you’re a sucker, he told himself.
Aloud, as he walked up to the other men, he said, “Who told you I was dead, Mr. Gorman?”
The baby-faced exec smiled. “Crannigan here told me that.”
Crannigan shrugged. “You didn’t come back, Roland. Figured the stalkers got you.”
“Like a man once said, the reports of my death are exaggerated. Stalkers, you said? You knew about stalkers being here, Crannigan?”
Crannigan scratched his chin. “Only after we got here. I caught a glimpse of ’em, up there on the cliff. I’d have called you—but you didn’t have a communicator. Only one I’ve got I needed to keep.”