Death Dance

by Jack McKinney

  Footnote in Reedy Kahhn's Riders on the Storm: The Regent's Invid

  "And you actually threatened Edwards?" the Regent's voice screamed through the communicator. "You fool! You were supposed to entice him, not drive him further from my grasp."

  In his quarters on the fleet flagship, the Invid simulagent gulped and found his voice. "I was only trying to get information out of him-as you yourself requested. But he wouldn't reveal anything about his homeworld. And worse still, he didn't seem to believe me when I spoke of the power of our empire."

  The Regent made a sour expression. "Well, how could he, coming from the likes of you? Do you know nothing of subtlety? Have you forgotten all that the brain taught you about intelligence gathering? It's as though you've made up your mind to deal with the Humans in your own sloppy fashion, when your mission was to be my eyes and ears. Not my mouth!"

  The simulagent winced, and turned to see if any of the soldiers were laughing behind his back. How could he begin to explain what he was going through-how the feel of power had worked its own magic on his mind, a magic that outweighed any concerns for

  diplomacy or "subtlety." But he kept these things tucked away from the being he was born to answer to, and instead thought to address the Regent as one might expect a servant to behave.

  "I apologize, Your Highness. It's these Humans...they confuse me."

  "Yes," the Regent told him, softening his tone some, "I can understand that much. But I begin to wonder about this Edwards. It strikes me that perhaps he has seen through my ruse-no thanks to you."

  The simulagent lowered his snout to the communicator remote. "Tell me how I can make amends. I am but your humble servant."

  The Regent wagged a finger. "And it would profit you to keep that in mind." He showed the sphere the palms of his hands. "Why does everyone feel they can think for themselves? First my wife, now you...Only Tesla served me well." He waved his hands in the air. "Arg, this whole affair is my fault anyway, sending a servant to do a conqueror's work." The Regent adjusted his robes. "I want you to return to Optera. There's nothing more you can do on Tirol, and if I permit you to stay any longer, it's likely you'll undo something."

  "But, Your High-"

  "Don't argue with me! We can do without the captured brain a while longer, and there are other ways to extract the information we want about the Masters, the Matrix, and the Humans' homeworld. Better to let the situation on Tirol deteriorate of its own accord. Then Edwards and I will talk." The Regent's eyes stared out from the sphere, gazing coldly at his simulagent. "You may have my looks"-he sighed-"but you certainly lack my talents."

  Rick slammed his hand down on the console-mike stud and shouted Wolff's call sign into the pickup. One minute Jonathan had been reporting that all signals were go for disengagement, and the next thing anyone knew he was saying something about the Beta having separated from the VT. And now the GMU seemed to have lost contact with both components.

  "Rising Star, come in," Rick urged. "Wolff! Respond. What's going on up there?" He swung around to Jean and Vince, who were busy at adjacent consoles. "Anything?"

  Jean swiveled to face him. "Too much cloud cover for a visual on the Beta, but scanners show it on an accelerated course for the drive module. The Alpha's way off the mark. We should have some data soon."

  "Was it the globes?"

  "Can't tell, Rick," Vince said without turning around.

  Just then Wolff's voice crackled into life through the room's speakers. "-actly sure what happened. Sarna was just passing along instructions to the orbs, then all of a sudden the Beta broke away. We're way off course. Can you give as a new heading?"

  "Coming up," Rick answered him. "Do you have any traffic from Janice?"

  "Negative, Rick. I can't even get a fix on the ship."

  "She's closing on the module, Jonathan," Vince said. "Any guesses?"

  "Not right now."

  Rick was about to add something when the hatch hissed open. "We've got troubles, sir," a Skull pilot announced.

  "We're aware of it," Rick said, more harshly than was necessary.

  The captain took a puzzled look around. "No, sir, in the caves. We're under attack."

  "Attack? From what?" Rick noticed for the first time that the woman was covered with dirt. Her face was smeared with some unidentifiable black fluid or grease.

  "Uh," the pilot stammered, "you're going to have to decide for yourself, sir."

  Rick and the pilot left the base at a run. Outside, Rick saw scores of orbs streaming from the mouth of the cave. Veidt and a handful of Praxians and mecha pilots were doing their best to calm the creatures, but Max and Miriya, along with half the Wolff Pack, were nowhere in sight.

  "In here, sir!" the pilot was shouting, motioning to the cavernous entrance.

  The floor of the cave was shaking, and Rick heard low rumbling sounds he initially attributed to tectonic tremors; then he realized that he was hearing explosions. These grew more concussive as he neared the grotto.

  The place was in a state of near pandemonium, dozens of orbs bobbing along, underlit by intense flashes of explosive light that was pouring out from holes and shafts in the floor; strident voices raised above the clatter of weapon fire; and something else-a kind of shrill, clacking noise, as eerie as it was loud.

  Rick glanced around, trying to make sense of things. Karen Penn was off in a corner, terrified, although Kami and Learna were by her side. Teal stood some distance from them,

  alone near what looked to be a limb of rock. Gnea and Bela were carrying coiled lengths of cord toward a shaft opening; close by were a couple of Perytonians and a few men from Wolff's team, donning gas masks and strapping on web-gear ammo packs.

  Without warning someone thrust a Wolverine into his hands.

  "Max!" Rick said, whirling around. "What's-"

  "Cover up," Max cut him off. He tossed Rick a mask and trotted off toward the shaft, cradling an Owens Mark IX mob gun. "Jack and Rem are trapped down there," he called over his shoulder. "We've killed a bunch of them already, but they just keep coming!"

  "Killed a bunch of what? Who keeps coming?"

  At the opening, Max pulled down his respirator and hooked on to one of the cords that had been lowered into the shaft. "Ready?" he shouted above the din from down below. Breathless, Rick followed his lead, and the two of them took to the rigs.

  A moment later, on the floor of an enormous sublevel room, Rick was certain they had overshot their mark and landed in hell. In the strobing light he could see they were standing on the rim of a massive well that seemed to drop straight down to the planet's molten core. Here, too, the ceiling was covered with orbs-most of them of greater size than any he had seen on the surface; but it was the creatures crawling up out of that well that had left him speechless. They might have been Hovertank-size spiders, except for their eyestalks, double-tiered segmented bodies, and front-facing mouths. And if they weren't the devil's own creation, Rick decided, then he didn't ever want to meet their maker. For no god could have loved so hideous and evil-looking a beast.

  It thrilled him to realize that the black stickiness coating the cavern's floor was blood from these things, but even that was not enough to wash the fear out of him. He remembered reading somewhere that there was an actual endogenous terror hormone certain creatures gave rise to in the human body; and indeed he seemed to remember them in some primal corner of his mind. But then he suddenly recalled where he had actually seen them: they were the creatures an ancient and unknown Praxian hand had depicted on the cave's walls!

  Tesla was amazed by the Human female's strength. He had finally succeeded in dragging her backward into the Beta's cargo space and now had both of Janice's seemingly frail wrists firmly clasped in his own hands, but it had been a struggle all the way. Burak, meanwhile, had slid forward into the cockpit seat to handle the controls. The drive module was looming into view through the VT's canopy, right on schedule, and theirs for the taking.

>   "Welcome to our crew," Tesla was saying to the still-untamed female. "Glad to have you aboard." Jonathan Wolff's urgent voice could be heard over the open net.

  Janice twisted around, almost breaking free of his hold, and glared at him. "Is this any way to treat a guest?"

  "If I let you free, will you promise to behave?"

  Janice gave her head a defiant toss. "Try me."

  Tesla eased his grip, and the android everyone thought a woman lunged for Burak's neck. Tesla pinioned her arms and threw her roughly against the aft bulkhead; he was pleased to see some of the fight go out of her.

  "Burak," Janice said weakly, one hand to her head. "What's your part in this? I can't believe you'd leave your friends to die back there."

  Burak showed her his profile, velvety horns and heavily boned brows accented amber in the display lights. "It's the only way I can help free my planet," he offered. "You can't understand-"

  "Enough of this," Tesla interrupted, taking stock of the wounds Janice's fingernails had opened on his arms. "Pay attention to what you're doing. And shut down the comm," he added, gesturing to the net switch.

  The crystalline-shaped Spherisian module filled their view now, eclipsing the stars. Burak matched the Beta's course to the module's seemingly slow-motion end-over-end roll, and began to maneuver the mecha along the drive's scorched and much-abused hull. He utilized the onboard computer to communicate with the module's own, and within minutes the docking-bay hatch was opened; the Beta was home free.

  When the bay had repressurized, the trio climbed from the Beta cockpit and eventually found their way to the bridge. Tesla carried Janice the entire way, bear-hugged to his huge chest like some sort of stuffed toy he couldn't live without. Burak lugged along the mutated fruits he had smuggled aboard the VT before liftoff.

  The Invid was feeling omnipotent-not only because he had so easily outwitted the Sentinels, but because he would soon be on his way to Optera for the face-to-face encounter with the Regent he had so often envisioned these past periods. The fruits from Karbarra and Praxis had, so he believed, rendered him superior to the monarch he had once served as soldier and would-be son. And now it was time for the Regent to step aside and grant him his due position as leader of the Invid race. Tesla had come to understand that it took more than mere strength to lead; it took insight and vision, and these gifts were his in abundance.

  But as they arrived at the drive's control room, some very real problems presented themselves, eroding Tesla's fantasies and summoning an anger from his depths.

  "But you told me you could astrogate this ship!"

  With a gesture of helplessness, Burak turned from the starmaps and spacefold charts he had called up on the Spherisian guidance monitors. "I thought I could, but now..."

  Tesla stormed over to him and began to scan the screens, puzzling over the datascrolls. He pointed a thick finger at one of them. "Here. Here is Optera."

  Burak's eyes opened wide. "Optera! But, Tesla-Peryton, we're going to Peryton."

  Telsa pushed him aside. "In due time," he said absently. "First there is something I must attend to."

  Burak steeled himself. "Then attend to it without my help."

  Tesla made a violent motion with his hands, but checked himself short of the Perytonian's neck, taking him instead by the shoulders, fraternally. "Of course, my dear. To Peryton, then." Tesla's hands urged Burak down into one of the acceleration seats. "Now, why don't we try to figure this out together, step by step. Let's just say for example's sake that we did want to fold for Opteraspace...Now, how would we do that, my friend...?"

  Janice took in the exchange from across the room. The two mutineers had all but forgotten about her, so it was easy enough to jack into the drive's systems while their attention was focused elsewhere. In a short time she had completed her bit of cybernetic magic. No matter what they fed into the ship's astrogational computers now, the module was locked on course for the Fantoma space system.

  Janice smiled to herself, wondering how Tesla would take to surprises.

  At first it was believed that Baker and Rem had been captured or eaten by the bristly eight-legged crawling nightmares delivered up from the Praxian netherworld; but subsequently the Sentinels found that their two teammates were simply being detained-the word someone from the Wolff Pack had used. Jack and Rem had been probed and manhandled, but apparently were safe. It seemed that the arachnids-Gnea and Bela had a name for them no one could pronounce-had no taste for meat. Moreover, the creatures weren't on a feeding frenzy at all-nor, for that matter, were they interested in counterattacking the beings who were busy lancing them with lasers and rockets. Like the orbs, these living anachronisms-unseen on Praxis for millennia-were attempting to flee the storms that burned at the planet's transformed core.

  Rick was long past his initial fright, but the sour taste of fear remained in his mouth. It struck him as odd that while in his day he had fought fifty-foot giants and walking slugs, ridden into battle alongside humanoid clones, ursine warriors, and amazons on Robotsteeds, he could experience such utter terror at the sight of giant spiders. Maybe, he had decided, it was the very mindlessness of the creatures; after all, even the Invid weren't monsters, were they? The Praxian women had been equally frightened, and Rick tried to imagine what it might be like to go up against, say, dinosaurs.

  But if the creatures hadn't actually added to the Sentinels' plight, they had done nothing to improve things. Countless orbs had exited the cave, and now there was a nasty bit of mopping up to do down below while the rest of the orbs were mustered for further lift assists. To make matters worse, there was still no word from the Beta, and one of the Spherisians had gone and gotten himself stuck in a rock!

  Presently, Rick and some of the others were grouped around Teal and the hand that had once belonged to her friend. Baldan was merged with the wall-the way a Mesoamerican bas-relief could be said to be merged to a stela. His profile was frozen but plainly visible, and there was a crystalline mass protruding from the section of rock where his chest might have been. The crystal grew before the astonished eyes of the assembled group.

  "No, you can't, Baldan-please stop this!" Teal was shouting to the wall. She swung around to Rick. "He is attempting to transfer his essence. But this has never been achieved on any world but Spheris." She looked back at the engorged growth. "And I don't want to raise it!"

  Again the crystal enlarged. Teal put her hands to her head in a panicked gesture and pleaded with Baldan to stop. But ultimately her hands reached for the faceted thing and she began to tug at it.

  "It's no use, Baldan," she cried. "It will die!"

  Rick moved in to give her a hand, and with some effort the two of them managed to pull the crystal loose. The hollow pop! sent a shudder up Rick's back. Baldan's profile receded into the wall and vanished. Teal dropped the crystal from her trembling hands and regarded it.

  "The child is lifeless...dead." She looked around at the others. "Baldan is lost to us."

  Whimpering sounds found their way out from under Kami and Learna's breathing tubes. Rick took Teal by the shoulders. "What did he tell you?"

  She stared at him blankly for a moment, then said, "The Invid. They must have been using Praxis for experiments of some sort. It was the chambers they hollowed out that gave birth

  to those creatures. And these same chambers have ushered in this world's demise."

  "But what kind of experiments?" Rick demanded. "What were they trying to create?"

  Teal shook her head.

  Tight-lipped, Rick released her and motioned a radioman over to him. "Any word from the Beta?" he asked Vince when the GMU link was established.

  "They've reached the module," Vince updated. "But we're not getting through to them."

  Rick summarized what had gone down in the caverns. "I want to speak with Tesla as soon as they call in. He must know something about all this-these pits. Maybe there's a way to reverse it?"

  "Unlikely
," Vince responded. "But I'm sure Tesla will tell us what he knows. He's practically one of us now."

  With a little help from the GMU's computers, the Alpha was back on course. Wolff and his Haydonite copilot were I at a loss to explain the unexpected separation, but they assumed Janice had done so with some good purpose in mind, and that her radio silence was nothing more than a glitch in the system. It didn't occur to either of them that there was conspiracy afoot.

  Wolff continued in this hopeful vein, even after he had learned that the Beta had apparently made a successful docking with the drive module. That singed piece of orbiting space debris was above him now, and he was getting all he could from the Alpha to make up for lost time. It was only when his radio requests for docking coordinates were ignored that he began to suspect foul play. The hunch became full-fledged concern when he couldn't get the Alpha's onboard systems to interface with the module. Consequently, the docking-bay shields remained closed, and unless something could be done to open them, the Alpha was going to wind up dead in space.