Not a mine shaft, he decided. A tunnel. Something a mistwife could climb up through.
Suddenly Gallen feared to breathe, to move. He wondered if the vibrations caused by their walking would call a mistwife.
Orick stepped to the edge of the pit and looked down. Gallen dared not speak, dared not warn him. The bear nosed around, then turned, knocking a clod of dirt into the pit.
From far down below, Gallen heard the echo of a splash, followed by a wondrous thrashing sound, waves beating against one another as something enormous moved in the water.
Orick opened his mouth wide in terror, backed from the pit as if bitten. Gallen gave a curt gesture, urging everyone to flee. He didn’t know if the light would attract the mistwife, what the beast might be capable of.
Maggie and Tallea rushed past Gallen.
A horrible groaning escaped the pit, a sound like a tree makes in the deep forest as it collapses under the weight of snow. Then Gallen heard rushing water.
The ground beneath his feet trembled, and Orick scrambled past. A hissing erupted from the pit. Something was rising, rushing through the hole.
Gallen reached for his weapons belt, unsure what to grab. None of his weapons would defend him against something this big.
An enormous form gushed up through the hole, water tumbling from it, propelled by no means Gallen could distinguish. Enormous worms, pinkish gray in color, dozens of meters long, shot up above him, writhing to find purchase in the next layer of the tangle. Suddenly the worms each broadened, and Gallen saw fluke-shaped webbing holding them all together at the base, followed at last by a broad head that sported an enormous white eye.
When the mistwife’s eye passed Gallen’s level, the creature jerked to a halt. It gazed at the glow globe Maggie held.
Gallen ran. He couldn’t force the others to retreat without light, yet the mistwife had seen them. He needed a barrier of some kind between them and the creature. He pulled out a small canister of Black Fog—the only one he had—and tossed it behind. It hissed and spurted darkness, spinning under the pressure of escaping gas.
Darkness wouldn’t stop the creature. The ground rumbled as a tentacle snaked toward Gallen.
Gallen retreated as the tentacle burst through the rising Black Fog. Gallen ripped a heat grenade from his hip pouch and tossed it into the humus, knowing it would be far too small to kill the mistwife, hoping it might sting the beast.
Gallen spun, ran after the others as fast as he could. The grenade exploded into light and thunder, its searing blast filling the cave with smoke. For a moment the ground quit rumbling. Gallen had gone a hundred meters or more before he heard a terrible shriek that caused the earth to tremble. It was a high, thin sound, a squeal of consummate power and wrath.
Then the mistwife advanced. The ground beneath Gallen shook, as if the mistwife were trying to tear the world apart. Behind Gallen, Black Fog filled the tunnel so much that he could not make out the flames thrown by the heat grenade.
The sudden movement of the creature made a wall of Black Fog billow toward him. Gallen sprinted to keep ahead of it.
Maggie and the others had been running on a trail made by a fallen tree. Now they’d reached the end of this particular tree. The passage ahead was blocked. But above them was an opening to another passage.
Tallea scampered up the sheer, muddy cliff, but Orick couldn’t follow. He clawed at the mud, but it wouldn’t hold his weight. Maggie stood at the bottom of the cliff, helpless to advance farther, Zeus at her side.
Behind Gallen, a second tentacle whipped into the light. It bore no scars or burn marks from the grenade.
Gallen spun and hurled a second heat grenade as far back as he could. It blazed like the sun; the smell of smoke filled the narrow chamber, overwhelming.
Again the mistwife shrieked; the ground shook furiously. The mistwife was grappling with the bole of the tree that they stood on, twisting it.
Gallen grabbed Maggie to keep her from falling. The tentacle withdrew from them, but the smoke that filled the passage was choking them all.
Suddenly, the end of the log Gallen stood on pulled away; a pit opened beneath them, perhaps six meters down, and Zeus tumbled in. It led to a small tunnel. Gallen and Maggie couldn’t go up to Tallea. They could only go down to Zeus.
“Come down with us!” Gallen shouted to the she-bear: he grabbed Maggie, helped her slide down into the tunnel.
In moments the bears scampered behind him, and Gallen ran. He didn’t want to wait and see if the mistwife would try for them again.
Here a path led down an ancient highway of worm vine. The road was broad and smooth, the roof above them higher than before.
Behind, Gallen could hear the mistwife thrashing. The crash of giant trees being ripped apart, the creature’s horrible shrieking cries.
Gallen wondered if the mistwife’s cries of pain would attract sfuz.
No, he decided. If I were a sfuz, I wouldn’t go to investigate something that caused a mistwife to shriek.
Yet as they passed one wide chamber, Gallen could clearly hear the mistwife above him, shrieking in rage. And he realized that the mistwife was eeling ahead of them, going north and climbing upward.
Gallen got a cold feeling in his stomach. “I think the mistwife is heading toward the cliffs,” he whispered.
Zeus said, “She’s angry. Maybe she thinks the sfuz are to blame.”
Of course—of course, Gallen realized. She is the huntress here, and the sfuz are her prey. She knows where to find them.
He’d imagined hunting for days or weeks to find Teeawah, but now he saw that he would only have to follow the mistwife through her hunting passage. It would lead to the sfuz.
“We have to go up higher, and go north,” Gallen whispered, gazing ahead. Nearby, a jumble of trees had collapsed into a pile, and the cave forked.
One route appeared to head in the direction he desired. “That way!”
Chapter 33
Abroad the dronon starship Acquiescence, Thomas stood thoughtfully gazing down onto the bridge.
The dronon starship seemed unthinkable by human standards: the deck, though clean, was much like the birthing chamber on one of the great walking hive ships. A bevy of dronon technicians clung to the sides of the dome-shaped walls like insects.
The technicians, with their twisted vestigial wings, their tan bodies and strange green facial tatoos, reminded Thomas of mantises, waiting to strike. Yet the technicians had no prey but the monitors and various switches they guarded.
Higher on the walls, in a great circle, were viewscreens that displayed images from on planet. Dronon hunting teams showed their Lords images captured as warships swept through a strange alien jungle, beneath a terrible storm.
The ships were diving into the woods, lights blazing through a nearly impenetrable gloom of foliage and mist, flying thousands of meters down into this vast and bizarre wood.
From here aboard the Acquiescence, the dronon would coordinate the work of the thirty-six hunting teams. Thomas watched the spectacle of the pursuit in horrid fascination.
Lord Karthenor had retrieved several people from the surface of Ruin—the dictator Felph and his two beautiful daughters. Karthenor spoke to Felph as if he were a “guest,” enjoying dronon hospitality, but Thomas knew Felph and his daughters were hostages. If they lied about Maggie’s whereabouts, if they tried to deceive the dronon, they’d pay dearly.
But Felph, a young man with glittering eyes that said he knew far more than a young man should, aided the dronon to the best of his abilities.
Thomas didn’t know whether to pity Felph, or to hate him. With his Guide on, Thomas could only stare, bearing silent witness to his treachery.
Karthenor said to Felph, in discussing the dronon invasion, “This is a rather unprecedented move of solidarity. to fly all the hive ships of the Golden Queens here in unison. But the dronon see the wisdom of combining their strength. Once they conquer mankind, they’ll share human technology equally. Wi
th both our species working together, we will begin a new era of prosperity.”
Felph looked out through the central viewport near the ceiling, where Ruin seemed to float above their heads, a ball of red sand blotched with hazy purple seas. Hundreds of brilliant objects floated around the planet, but Thomas could see they weren’t stars—they were dronon warships, along with technical support crews.
Nearby several technical support crews had already begun creating a passive ring of black metal in space, a new gate that would let the dronon fly their ships back to their ships back to their own home worlds once they’d found Gallen and Maggie.
“Marvelous, marvelous.” Felph mouthed the words without enthusiasm as he studied the construction of this massive Gate to All Worlds. “But I have to wonder, Lord Karthenor. Wouldn’t the golden age you speak of be just as grand if humans stood at the helm? What if we took control, discovered the secrets of dronon technology?”
Karthenor studied Felph with an appreciative smile. “The Tharrin would never do that,” Karthenor said. “The notion of dominating another species would offend their principles.”
Felph shrugged. “Well, the Tharrin aren’t human, are they? I ask you again, what if humans took control?”
Karthenor stared down at Cintkin and Kintiniklintit, Lords of the Seventh Swarm. In the center of the dome, the Golden Queen lay in a huge pit, her bloated body filling a remarkable portion of the room. Hundreds of small, white worker dronon scurried around her, constantly feeding her some obnoxious milk, or grooming her body by cleansing it with their mandibles, or hauling off the sickly yellow eggs that dropped from her egg sac every two minutes.
The sheer number of dronon in the room invited a sense of claustrophobia. Yet more intimidating than all this was Kintiniklintit himself, the Lord Escort who stood at the queen’s side, receiving his own ministrations from fawning attendants. Dozens of Vanquishers surrounded him, enormous, deadly creatures with their black carapaces. Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies.
Lord Kintiniklintit dwarfed all his counterparts.
Karthenor nodded toward Kintiniklintit, considering Felph’s treasonous attitude. “Marvelous specimen, isn’t he? He’s one of the first dronon Lords who has been modified through genetic manipulation. He outweighs his rivals by sixty percent. Most of his exoskeleton has been reinforced, so he can withstand greater damage in the arena. I believe if he wanted to, he could seize control of the whole dronon empire. But he’s biding his time, wisely I might add. He’s a young Vanquisher, and is studying the battle techniques of his enemies.”
That was all Karthenor said, but the implied message was this: we can’t conquer the dronon unless a human can survive in the arena with this monster. I’m backing Kintiniklintit.
Felph.did not answer. He just eyed Kintiniklintit with an amused twinkle in his eye. “We share an unhealthy fondness for eugenics, I see.” Felph glanced at Karthenor.
“You’ve met my beautiful daughters. When you find Gallen and Maggie, you’ll meet my son, Zeus. I hope you find him admirable. Sometimes, there is more to a man than meets the eye.”
Thomas heard the threat under those words: don’t back Kintiniklintit until you know the competition.
Lord Karthenor smiled affably. “A son? You have a son?” he waved expansively at Kintiniklintit. “Then we both have sons, for though he was born to the Lords of the Sixth Swarm, Kintiniklintit is as much my son as his father’s.” Thomas was stunned by the admission. “So, our sons will do battle. How amusing.”
“Fortuitous,” Felph said, “I hope.”
“Amusing, whatever the outcome,” Karthenor said. As if to change to a safer topic, he added, “It’s odd, don’t you think, that a species as advanced as the dronon never considered the benefits of genetics till they met man? You’d think any self-aware species would instantly recognize the benefits of genetic manipulation—to cure disease, improve intelligence. But the dronon never saw it as anything more than a curiosity.
“You see, they knew what to do with those who were deformed or sickly. They killed them. Threw them away.”
“The result is that for millions of years, the dronon have been almost free from genetically transmitted ailments. So they never considered the possibility of improving themselves …”
Karthenor waited for Felph to respond. Clearly he wanted to know what “improvements” Lord Felph had made to Zeus. There was a dangerous glimmer in Karthenor’s eyes, a stern tightness about his mouth. If Thomas weren’t wearing a Guide, he’d have warned Felph of the dangers of revealing too much.
Perhaps Lord Felph was smarter than Thomas credited. With a grin, he simply said, “Hmmm … interesting.”
Around the room, a rhythmic, pounding hum reverberated as dronon technicians kept up constant chatter. But suddenly Kintinrklintit began loudly clacking his mouthfingers over his voicedrum; the other dronon quieted.
Karthenor seemed to have no difficulty understanding the dronon’s words. “Ah, it looks as if you have steered us correctly, Felph. For that, I thank you. The dronon located the ship precisely where you said it would be.”
The central screen, which took up nearly a third of one wall, displayed a three-dimensional image of a glowing blue spaceship buried deep beneath the tangle.
“I suspected he’d be there,” Felph said. “I had some work for Gallen in this region.”
“Work?” Karthenor asked.
“Searching for ancient ruins. The natives on this world once stood or, the verge of creating technology. It’s rumored that an ancient city lies there somewhere, but it’s the devil to get to—local predators, you know.”
“Hmmm.” Karthenor shrugged, uninterested in the matter.
Dronon technicians in one sector of the dome suddenly began humming loudly, and Karthenor spun on his heels, watching the monitors they tended. The dronon cleared away from several screens. Klaxons began screaming a warning in the distance, while brilliant blue lights flashed along the floor of the dome.
In space, all around the planet, dronon battleships suddenly began to dive landward. Felph wrung his hands nervously and shouted, “What’s happening? Where are they all going?”
Karthenor studied the ships, his dark eyes darting from monitor to monitor. “The other Swarm Lords know we’ve found Maggie’s ship, and they’re trying to get to her first. They’re sending in Vanquishers—their own search parties.”
Thomas almost grinned. So his niece was a treasure, and all the dronon were going to fight for her, fight for the chance to challenge Gallen O’Day.
Karthenor waved to a screen at the far right. “See, the Lords of the Fourth Swarm are sending down six full Flights—over forty-six thousand Vanquishers. I should have. anticipated this!” he grumbled. “With thousands of worlds at stake, the opportunity to loot mankind’s technology, I should have known!”
As the Lords of the Fourth Swarm launched six battleships toward the planet, the others were forced to deploy their own troops in ever-greater numbers. Sixty thousand Vanquishers from first swarm, ninety from second.
Within minutes, over half a million Vanquishers departed for Ruin. Thomas wished he could talk, at least enough to hurl a curse at the dronon. He hoped the Vanquishers would do more than merely race toward Gallen and Maggie. He hoped they would fight over their prey. At least that way, if Gallen and Maggie died, some dronon would be lost, too.
Thomas could think of nothing to do—no way to help his niece, but to pray silently. “Hide, Maggie. Hide!”
Chapter 34
Maggie hurried to keep up, terrified beyond her ability to tell. Distantly, the earth rumbled from the sound of the mistwife flailing in her anger.
Gallen ran ahead of Maggie, following crazy trails, trying to go upward when possible. Time and again as she climbed, Maggie found herself grabbing wildly at ancient roots in the ground, all of them cold as ice and hard as iron.
The landscape had no color. Everything was washed in shades of gray, covered with the same dark molds and slim
es.
Dully, almost constantly, she heard wild thrashing, the terrible cries of the mistwife. They were getting closer to it as they climbed.
They came to a cavern filled with iron gray molds, standing like inverted trumpets, which felt like foam rubber beneath her feet. Nothing lived here except for the odd blind insect that skittered off when it felt the ground tremble at their steps. Beyond the occasional trickle of water, she could no longer hear any sounds. The air smelled fetid, full of rot and mold. The stillness, the heavy, oppressive air weighed her down, made her feel as if she would suffocate.
For nearly two kilometers, they found no sign of sfuz but for a pair of prints in the humus, crossing their path. “A young sfuz,” he said. Maggie was no expert tracker, but even she could see detritus filling the prints; the edges around the tracks had crumbled. The sfuz that made them could not have passed this way within weeks or months. Still, it was a good sign. A juvenile had passed this way, exploring the tangle, hunting.
Gallen tried to follow the tracks back to a lair, but they led around the lip of a dangerous sinkhole, then climbed directly up a steep tree. Still, they were getting near the lair.
“Maggie,” her mantle whispered. “I have just received a message from the ship. The dronon are making a powerful sensor sweep of this area. They’ve discovered the ship’s location.” Gallen turned and frowned at Maggie. Apparently, his mantle had just relayed the message to him.
It had taken Gallen and Maggie two hours to fly their ship into this mess. They’d snaked through dozens of passages, gone up almost as much as they’d gone down. Even if the dronon knew their ship was here, it could take them hours to find a path to it. Once they did, they’d follow Maggie’s scent.
She imagined dronon Vanquishers, thousands strong, hunting through this tangle. She wondered what would happen when they met the sfuz.
“Gallen,” she hissed. “We have to stop!”
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