“She’s right.” Cranther raised up on his elbows just a bit, slowly. The angry guard poked the quiet one in the chest before turning and stomping off toward the opposite end of the bridge. The quiet one watched him go for several steps before tossing a hand gesture at his back. “I think I know what that meant.”
“Are they splitting up?” Gorman had to lean in to be heard.
“Maybe.” Cranther’s face was lit by a malicious grin. “But I doubt it. I think they got told to walk around and one of them doesn’t want to.”
He lowered himself back onto his stomach, the smile still there. “Let’s watch for a while and see if they develop a pattern.”
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” Cranther’s voice broke the stillness. “One of us is going to crawl up under the bridge and cross to the other side. Shouldn’t be too dangerous. When these two aren’t arguing, the hardcore one walks up and down the bridge. Every time he heads for the opposite side, the other one sits down.
“When Hardcore comes back and starts chirping and whining at Lazyboy, that should leave plenty of time to slide out on the other side and get ready.” Mortas couldn’t help noticing that Cranther was looking at him now. “The next time Hardcore walks off the bridge, turns around, decides what he’s gonna say next to Lazyboy, when his back’s turned it’ll be easy to stab him.”
A movement. Mortas looked down and was surprised to see the butt end of Cranther’s knife held out in his direction.
“Me? I’ve never done anything like that. Besides, you’d fit under the bridge a lot easier than I would.”
The knife disappeared. “Fine. I’d rather take the one on the other side. He’ll never know what hit him. But the guy in the middle there, whoever gets him is gonna have to run across all those metal plates, making all sorts of racket, and then kill him with a rock or his bare hands.
“Figured I’d do that part, but if you want it, it’s yours.”
“Why do we have to kill either of them?” Gorman. “Why can’t we all just crawl under the bridge?”
“Because one man can cross under that bridge without getting spotted. Four people? No way.”
“We’ll go one at a time, then.”
“Sure. And end up with two of us on the other side, one under the bridge, and one left over here when that mover comes back.” Cranther shook his head minutely. “Lieutenant? It’s your call. Take the knife and do the guard on the other side, or take the one in the middle with a rock. Oh, and remember that if the one on the other side gets off a shot, whoever’s doing the one in the middle is gonna have to move like lightning.”
The knife came up again, and Mortas grabbed the handle angrily. He hefted the thin dagger, surprised by its weight. “Give me the scabbard too. I’m not cutting myself on this thing while going across.”
A prolonged outburst of Sim talk jerked his attention back to the span. The guard who’d been walking the post swatted the other one on the helmet, hard, before walking toward their side of the stream. Cranther nudged Mortas, and the two of them slithered back from the edge of the hill on their stomachs.
“Now listen.” Cranther unbuckled his belt and began feeding it through the loops toward the scabbard. “Take your time. The water sounds are gonna cover your movement, and whenever that one guy’s in motion his boots hitting those plates are all he’s gonna hear even if he’s right over you. If he stops, you stop. And don’t start moving again until he does. We’ve got all night to do this.”
“I thought we were worried about the mover coming back.” Mortas slid the dagger into its sheath and began buckling his belt again.
“We are. So keep your eyes open for them too. Once you’re on the other side, cross the road and get in the weeds so if they do come back you’re not exposed. When the guard reaches your end, wait until he turns away from you and come up behind him quick.” He raised his left hand with the fingers pressed together. “You’re tall, so this will work for you. Cup your hand over his mouth, hard, and drive the knife in from the side of his neck.”
“You mean stab him? I thought it was better to cut his throat.”
“No.” Cranther’s left hand clamped down over an unseen mouth and his right hand came up in a fist, as if he was trying to stab his left arm. “Do it all at once, punch in with a lot of force because the meat’s tough, and then rip straight out.
“Don’t believe what you’ve been told, Lieutenant. The Sims are human. Any luck, you’ll tear out his arteries and his windpipe. It’ll be an ungodly mess, but make sure you hang on to him. Take him to the ground, and hold him until he stops moving. Then get his gun—you do know how to use one of theirs, right?”
“The newer ones, they let us shoot them in training one time. Not these.”
“Same basic idea, just lousy range. Don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to. Drag his body into the grass on the other side of the road and wait until the three of us come across.”
Mortas could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and he wondered if the sensation of lightheadedness was because of hunger or fear. His mind fogged up on him, unwilling to accept what was happening. Could he do it? Could he not do it? What if he messed it up?
“Lieutenant.” The voice was stern. “Relax. You’ll be fine. He won’t be expecting a thing. Take your time getting across, get hidden on the other side, and kill him when he comes to you. Once I see he hasn’t come back I’ll make my move.”
The short man craned his neck over the grass. “He’s heading away now. Time to go.”
Mortas looked at him expectantly, hoping the scout would at least accompany him to the bridge. It was a foolish thought, but real nonetheless.
Cranther stuck his hand out, and Mortas took it firmly. “Be careful getting under the bridge, and don’t let your legs swing down while you’re crossing. Those serpents are under there somewhere.”
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 5
The rocks shifted dangerously underfoot as Mortas moved. It had taken him some time to screw up the courage to actually approach the water, but the idea that he might end up trapped under the bridge or waiting on the opposite bank when more Sims arrived spurred him to action.
The ground between the hill and the bridge was relatively open, probably cleared when the structure was put in place. Still, there was enough shrubbery to shield him if he hustled from clump to clump, bent over as if crushed under a tremendous load. The knife felt strange in the small of his back, yet another goad pushing him along.
An odd thought came to mind as the dark expanse got larger and more distinct. It was from a training exercise during his early lieutenancy, and he’d been sent out on a night reconnaissance to observe the mission’s target. A live opposing force was supposed to have been defending the location, a signal-bounce station on a small ridge, but they were nowhere to be seen. He and another lieutenant had spent an hour crawling and crouching their way to the top, only to find the place deserted. A mock-up of an enemy antenna had proved they were in the right spot, and to leave their mark they’d pulled up its anchoring stakes and tipped it over the side.
Though only a few months earlier, the event seemed a distant memory.
The sound of the water was now louder than his footfalls, but instead of hurrying him along it caused him to draw back from the embankment. The very thought of the serpents made his legs go weak, and he now knew that it wasn’t from hunger. Squatting beside a clump of tall yellow grass that was gray in the starlight, he peeped over the brush to scope out the bridge and was startled to see it was only a few yards away. That of course meant that the others, up on the hill, were watching him now. Mortas found that idea oddly comforting and, stranger still, somehow motivational. They were depending on him, and couldn’t even start to come across until he’d completed his assigned tasks. The thought freed him just a little of his concern for his own well-being.
Leaving the final cover, he duckwalked to the side of the bridge. The railing hid him from the guard who was presumably still seated in the span’s center, but he didn’t waste time looking. The white composite material that made up the bridge support sloped down the bank like a ramp, and the shadowy stream lapped against it hungrily.
Unable to see beneath the structure, but unwilling to move closer to the water, he forced himself to scramble out onto the alien rock, his hands sliding along the cool metal overhead. His arms were now fully extended, and he could just make out the maze of struts and cables under the bridge’s flooring that helped support the span. The structure’s underside was much deeper than he’d first imagined, and it was with relief that he swung his legs up and into the metal framework.
His ankles found purchase on a rigid cable, so Mortas pulled himself up and forward until he’d come to a sitting position. The water gurgled below him at a distance that seemed much too close, and he pulled his boots up in a hurry when he remembered Cranther’s parting words. That left him crouched on the cable, both hands gripping an overhead beam, and the position was so uncomfortable that it got him moving again.
The decking just overhead bore rows of stamped oval holes which let in enough light for him to start picking his way forward. He made good progress, thinking the whole time that the much-shorter Cranther would have been a better choice for this leg of the journey while also listening for the sound of boots on metal. It didn’t come, and so he pressed on, making sure of his handholds before stepping onto the next cable or strut. The butt of the knife was starting to abrade the small of his back, but he was too frightened by the chance of falling into the water to do anything about it.
Gonna kill that Cranther when this is all over. He’s probably laughing his ass off up there, waiting for me to get shot . . . or to fall.
A new vibration in his hands made those thoughts vanish, and he stopped moving. It was rhythmic, a steady beat, and it could only be the footfalls of the returning guard. He looked ahead, trying to determine where he was in relation to the sitting guard, and that was when he saw something that almost made him lose his grip.
Just a few yards ahead, probably in the center of the span, the underside of the bridge was completely taken up by a thick metal beam that completely blocked his path.
Mortas felt the backs of his legs cramping up first. He was still squatting there in the murky darkness, fixated on the obstacle, when the walking guard reached the sitting guard. They seemed to converse for a bit, the chirping sounds hard to distinguish against the rush of the water. It hardly mattered that they seemed on the verge of a rapprochement, as he wouldn’t have been able to keep moving even if they’d separated as expected.
The beam blocking his path was directly beneath the sitting guard, so he wouldn’t be able to slide around it by grasping the railing above. There appeared to be a cable looped around the obstacle, but using that would require him to swing underneath, dangling over the stream like a worm on a hook. He shuddered just thinking about it.
The cramps began asserting themselves more forcefully then, and he looked around in panic for a means of stretching his legs out. The chirping overhead grew louder, and he was able to locate the standing guard by the way the light changed in one row of holes up ahead. The back of one of his thighs began to scream just after that, and he was forced to sit back onto the cable and reach out with his boots, pressing them against the next stanchion while the two Sims argued.
What if they shoot each other?
His heart leapt at the very thought, and he imagined climbing up onto the bridge next to two dead bodies, freed of the confines and the water and the serpents and the looming task of killing one of them himself. With a knife. In cold blood.
The utter impossibility of his predicament came home at that instant, and it took a conscious effort not to actually start crying in frustration. His strength was quickly ebbing, and he looked about wildly, as if willing some kind of egress to appear. It did not, of course, but just then the light through the holes changed yet again, quickly, and he heard the meaty thud of a boot on flesh. The plates began to vibrate as the walking guard came toward him, stomping hard, clearly furious as he walked away from his lazy partner.
Thanks a lot, Fuckface. Now I gotta sneak up on a guy who’s really pissed off.
Anger welled up in him, and he pulled his boots back onto the cable to resume a squatting position. The barely loosened muscles immediately wanted to constrict again, so he started grimly moving forward. The beam seemed to bounce in front of him, taunting, and the cable wrapped around it took on the consistency of a thread.
He finally reached it, and rested a palm against the metal while searching the shadows for any kind of a handhold. The water rushing by below got louder, and he could have sworn he heard a different, living kind of swishing sound down there. Mortas raised one foot and reached out for the cable, nudging it to see if it was actually attached. It didn’t move, but that didn’t mean it would support his weight. His head began jerking around madly, his eyes almost round as they tried to penetrate the gloom and find some other way, any other way to do this.
There was none.
His breath came in short, shallow gasps as he reached down with one hand and took hold of the thick rolled wire. The rush of the water turned into a roar as he steeled himself, and he knew, he just knew, that the cable wasn’t really attached to anything. It was probably just a discarded piece of support wire tucked out of the way by a Sim workman as lazy as the bastard sitting above him, and it would come loose the instant he swung under the beam. He watched in disbelief as his other hand released the firm safety of the bridge and wrapped around the cable as if directed by someone else. He inched his buttocks forward slowly, reluctantly, feeling the weight shifting off of the last contact while his mouth filled with the brassy taste of adrenaline and his boots swung against empty air and then he was falling.
The handhold came loose almost immediately, dropping him toward the water and the waiting, snapping jaws. He was in free fall, the air rushing around but not supporting him, his mouth and eyes widening in absolute terror. He was just about to scream when the slack went out of the line with a jerk. The cable had slid along the beam, an abbreviated rasp, loosening but not letting go at either end, and now it caught on something and shot him under the obstacle like a trapeze artist. Incredibly, the extra play in the wire was exactly what he needed, and his momentum sailed him straight up and into the supports on the other side.
His boot hooked on one of the diagonal support bars, his opposite shin barked against unyielding metal, and for an instant he was hanging almost upside down. The image of one of the serpents launching itself for his head sent him shimmying upward into the safety under the bridge’s flooring, and he grabbed his shin as the pain soared into his brain. Tightened into a ball, hugging the frame with his upper arms while squeezing his leg with his hands, he practically shouted when something thumped on the plates directly above him. He looked up to see the holes in the flooring change from light to black, and then back to light.
The walking guard passed over him, so close that he could have poked a finger up into the sole of his boot, and he froze until the rhythmic footfalls went silent. He clung there for what seemed like a long time, letting his heart and his breathing slow down. Stress perspiration covered his entire body, and a slight breeze brought a cooling release. The water below kept gurgling at him, but he could now see all the way to the end of the bridge.
The far bank was much steeper, almost sheer, and so he had to worm his way through the remaining metal latticework and over the rock-like support until there was simply no more room. The walking guard had already headed for the other side, and so he wriggled out on his back, the girders just over his chest and gravel working its way down his neck. The stars overhead were shining, he was safely across the abode of the ravenous water snakes, and he simply lay there for a
long moment. Finally rolling onto his stomach, he pushed himself up into a kneeling position and looked around.
It was as if he’d discovered the planet all over again, and he felt like an explorer. Of the group, he was the only one who’d seen this side of the river up close, and he looked down the hard pack of the road until it melted into the darkness. Remembering the enemy mover as well as his grim purpose, he got to his feet and dashed across into the weeds. It was intoxicating to move freely, to run over solid dirt and then collapse in a bed of grass. The ground sloped upward sharply from there, into what he already knew was a high ridge. Cranther had suggested it as their next destination, and Mortas tried to focus on that instead of the approaching brutality.
The trip across had left him both dazed and elated, but he knew that the Sim guard would be returning soon and that the hardest part of the night had not yet arrived. He reached back and slowly drew the knife from its sheath, awkward in his hand. He hefted it a few times to get the feel, like lacrosse warm-ups back at university, hoping to gain some kind of familiarity with the strange tool. His lacrosse stick had become just another part of him after enough games, but he truly doubted he’d ever get that comfortable with this evil blade.
The thought of school days brought unwanted images of his father, his sister, even the dim memories of his dead mother. Prone in the weeds on a foreign planet, stomach empty, waiting for an unsuspecting entity to cross his path. What would his people say if they could see him right now?
His father, always ready with an answer, would probably say something about doing things that had to be done no matter how distasteful or difficult. But then again, he and his cronies of the Emergency Senate had murdered the Interplanetary President and his entire cabinet, so they’d had lots of practice portraying their actions in terms of necessity.
His sister Ayliss would have a different opinion. She always did. She’d tried so many times to dissuade him from signing up for the Force. Accurately warning him that their father was using him yet again, either to learn the truth about what was actually happening in the war or to hold him up as an example of the family’s dedication to that very conflict.
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