But what choice did she have? She pressed on. *
Nikki checked her watch. Almost forty minutes since she’d emerged from the river. By her original estimate, that meant she was maybe twenty minutes from the camp and safety.
But how accurate is that estimate? she asked herself. Her “bump of direction” told her she was headed the right way. But as for distance and speed, she could only guess.
She found a narrow path, one that led in approximately the right direction. That would let her move faster, knock some time off the trip.
She’d been surprised — pleasantly so, but surprised nonetheless — to have seen or heard no signs of anything threatening in the jungle. No sounds, no cries, no movement, nothing. (Of course, her imagination had worked overtime to manufacture such threats where none existed — the night breeze through the foliage was stealthy movement, a deep patch of shadow was a tentacled creature ready to grab her, that kind of thing. She could almost laugh about it, except that the fear she felt from false alarms was very real, even though the cause might not be. The narrow path curved, entered a tiny clearing.
There were people ahead. Almost a dozen, dressed in dark clothing, carrying weapons. They saw Nikki at the same moment she spotted them. The one in the lead brought his weapon up.
With a cry of alarm, Nikki hurled herself aside. The figure’s weapon spat. Something plucked at the sleeve of her wet shirt. Bullets stitched the bole of a tree behind her.
She struck the ground hard, but rolled with the impact, coming back up onto her feet. She ran, expecting any moment to feel the numbing impact of bullets into her back, expecting shots to tear her life from her.
But nothing struck her. The sound of her own passage through the jungle filled her ears; there was no way she could hear any pursuit. Her lungs felt like they were about to burst. She couldn’t run any further.
Trying to mute her gasping she stopped, ducking behind the thick bole of a tree. She listened, trying to pick up sounds of pursuit.
Nothing. She could hear nothing but the night-sounds of the jungle. But did that mean the gunmen weren’t after her, or only that they were experts at moving silently? She kept her back against the tree trunk, remained motionless while she listened, and counted seconds.
One hundred and eighteen seconds, one hundred and nineteen, one hundred and twenty … Two minutes, and still no sound or sign of pursuit. No matter how carefully the gunmen were moving, surely they’d have passed her by now… She craned around the bole of the tree for a quick look.
Nobody was there. She could see no movement, no suspicious shapes. Of course, her pursuers could be skilled woodsmen, sneaking up on her, or just waiting for her to expose herself. She flattened herself against the tree trunk, counted to one hundred and twenty again, then a third time. Still no movement.
They’ve gone, she told herself. They weren’t looking for me, they were doing something else. They just met me by accident. So why would they bother chasing me? Logically, that reasoning made sense. But, she had to admit, she was steadily losing her faith in logic. Logically, Orrorsh can’t exist, and none of this can be happening. So much for logic.
Cautiously, she stepped out from behind her tree. To her wry amusement, she realized she was tensing her muscles — as if that would stop a bullet.
But nobody shot her, nothing moved in the darkness around her. Who were they? she asked herself. In the suddenness of the encounter she’d seen no details—just the dark figures themselves and the weapons in their hands, Then there’d come the muzzle flash, and she was running for her life. Nagara security, out on a search-and- destroy mission ? She didn’t think so, although she wasn’t quite sure why not. Apparently, her subconscious had noticed something but wasn’t deigning to tell her conscious mind about it. Oh well, it didn’t matter, did it? They were going their way, she was going hers.
Wishing for eyes in the back of her head — and jumping at even the slightest sound — she resumed her original course.
*
It was almost dawn by the time she reached the camp clearing. In the growing light, she could see that Hollingforth, Black and the soldiers were up and around. She stepped into the clearing.
MacHeath saw her first, had his rifle half-way to his shoulder before he recognized her. Then they were all running toward her — even Professor Black.
Peter pulled to a stop a few feet short of her. She could see the relief in his face, but also the indecision — should he hug her, or would that be presumptuous? She made the decision for him. Laughing wildly with the release of tension, the realization that she was safe, she flung her arms around his neck, buried her face in his beard. It took him a couple of seconds to reciprocate, but then his arms tightened around her back hard enough to almost squeeze the air from her.
Then, firmly, he pushed her away, held her at arm’s length. His face was flushed, working with mixed emotions. “Where the bloody hell did you go?” he demanded. “What kind of bloody fool stunt was that?”
If it hadn’t been apparent from his face, the fact that he was swearing in front of a woman — to a woman — told Nikki how seriously he was taking this. Even through her relief, she felt remorse for the pain she’d caused him. She lowered her eyes. “There was something I had to do,” she said quietly.
“What?” This from MacHeath. He was a little more under control than Hollingforth, but he was disturbed too.
“I had to go back to the outpost.”
“Why?” Peter wanted to know.
Briefly she outlined her logic about finding the outpost’s secret, about using it to discredit Eichiro and destroy his career. “It’s important,” she stressed. “He killed two of my friends—one directly, one indirectly. And he tried to kill me.” She paused. Through the relief, the horror of the night seeped back into her heart. “And there’s more,” she said quietly.
The bleak timbre of her voice struck them, she could see it. “What happened?” MacHeath asked in hushed tones.
She told them about her approach to the stockade, about taking to the river to avoid the fence. She painted a verbal picture of the specimen room, its cages full of small creatures, hideous and evil. “And it was there, too,” she went on, her eyes flicking back and forth between Peter and Black, “the thing you’re after. Dr. Ling. The weretiger.”
Black’s eyes sprung wide open. “What?” heshouted. “At the outpost?”
“It’s not there any more,” she admitted, “it escaped.” She shivered. “It’s free in the jungle. Somewhere.”
“But why?” Hollingforth wanted to know. “They had it captive. Why?”
“Why not destroy it?” Black added.
“I don’t know. They were collecting monsters as specimens, but I don’t know …” Nikki’s voice trailed off. Specimens? she thought. No, experimental subjects! What had “Dr. Ling” said to Funakoshi? “You took my blood, you took my genes for your experiments,” wasn’t that it? She remembered the strange sera that had come to Group Five from Funakoshi’s lab. Sera that showed characteristics of both human and animal proteins, similar to both but matching neither, strangely mutable. Sera she’d assumed had come from gene-splicing experiments.
Why couldn’t those samples have come directly from the veins of the weretiger?
“They were experimenting on it,” she told the waiting men. “They were taking samples of its blood. They were analyzing its genetic material…”
“Blackarts!” the professor thundered. “Profane practices!”
To her surprise, Nikki found she had to agree. Normally she was firmly opposed to people who resisted scientific research and progress on religious grounds. Stop something if it’s dangerous, but not because some musty book says it’s Something Man Was Not Meant to Know. Genetic research was neither good nor evil, in and of itself. Like anything to do with technology, it was only the way that people used it that made it good or evil. And this is evil, she told herself.
“What were they trying to do?” Hollingfort
h asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. They never told me before, I doubt they’d tell me now.”
“Whatever it was, it was evil,” Black pronounced. Again, Nikki couldn’t argue with him.
“You said the weretiger escaped,” Peter reminded her. “How?”
She explained about the raid on the outpost by the mixed force of monsters. “I don’t know if they were coming specifically to free it,” she concluded, “or whether that was just a sideline.”
MacHeath nodded. He still was obviously a deeply troubled man, but he looked as though his mind had been set at ease on one matter. “That explains a lot,” he said. “I had the watch at about two o’clock—that must have been after you’d snuck away, Miss Carlson” — he shot her a pointed look; she felt herself blush, and lowered her eyes —- “and the jungle just came alive. You know -the normal night sounds, I warrant?” She nodded. “One minute those were all the sounds there were. The next, well… I’ve never heard such a howling and a crying in my life. It sounded like an army was on the move, but such an army as I’ve never known before, and never want to know.
“I thought they were coming for us, whatever they were,” the sergeant went on. “I woke the others, and that’s when we found you were missing.” His steely eyes were steady on her face, his expression and voice emotionless. He was dressing her down, Nikki knew, but in such a way that she couldn’t take umbrage. She wouldn’t have anyway — she knew she deserved it.
“Our first assumption was that the things had taken you,” MacHeath continued. “I had to almost physically restrain Mr. Hollingforth here to stop him from going after you. The only thing that really held any of us back was that we didn’t know where you might have gone— or been taken — or what direction to look.”
She felt her blush deepening. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“Going off alone was asinine,” Black pronounced.
“In enemy territory it was tactically unwise,” MacHeath added judiciously.
“Why did you do it, Nikki?” Peter’s eyes were troubled. “Why? You could have been killed.”
She couldn’t meet his gaze. “I had to do it. I told you why.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” From his voice she could tell that has his real question, the issue that was really troubling him. “I could have come with you, protected you …”
She shrugged, unable to voice the real answer. Don’t push, she urged him silently, don’t make me say something that’ll hurt you.
MacHeath let her off the hook—either by chance, or because he was a lot more sensitive than his demeanor indicated, she wasn’t sure. “Be that as it may,” he said brusquely, “what about the assault on the stockade? They managed to free the beast, but apart from that how did they fare?”
“They killed a lot of people, I think,” Nikki responded eagerly, glad to get off an uncomfortable subject. “Mainly security guards, I’d guess. When I escaped the fighting was still going on, but I think the outpost people were winning.”
“What about the people who were doing the work?” Hollingforth asked.
“One of the key scientists was killed. From the way he talked, the program might have been his idea.”
“Then it was right and it was meet that he met his
fate,” the professor said piously.
“It was Ling who killed him,” Nikki pointed out, and that shut him up.
“Can they continue the work?” Peter pressed.
Nikki thought about that for a moment. Funakoshi had been the only one of the scientists she’d known by name, and apparently one of the guiding forces behind the project. But the entire Matsushima Bay research team had a reputation for brilliance. Even with Funakoshi gone, the outpost wouldn’t suffer for lack of brainpower. And, of course, Eichiro was still there to drive things along.
“They can continue,” she announced bleakly.
That silenced them all for a while.
Eventually Peter spoke. “Nikki …” Then he corrected himself, “Miss Carlson …”
“Nikki,” she told him firmly.
“Nikki,” he agreed with a smile. “Would you agree that the project in the outpost must be stopped?”
She didn’t have to think about that one at all. “Yes.”
Hollingforth nodded, exchanged glances with the other men. “We are all agreed, then,” he said. “There are some men in the area who share the same goal. Sergeant MacHeath met them several hours ago. Their camp is nearby. I think we should meet with them. You can provide them with important information, perhaps, and we can help them in whatever ways we can. Will you do that?”
She thought it through for a moment, then shrugged. Why not? Anybody who wanted to rain on Eichiro’s parade — whoever they were and whatever their motives — was okay with her. “Let’s do it,” she said firmly.
*
It took just a few minutes for the men to get ready to travel. Nikki took the opportunity to duck into a tent and change her wet clothes for shirt and trousers that Hollingforth had loaned her. The shirt didn’t fit badly around her chest, although the sleeves were massively too long and the lower hem was half-way down her thighs. The trousers were a disaster. Even with the legs rolled up and the waist cinched in using the belt from her shorts, the only thing that could be said about them was that they concealed her legs from casual view. Which is probably a major issue for Professor Black, she thought with amusement. She wished there was something she could do with her hair — more from a standpoint of comfort than vanity, she told herself — but she didn’t have too many options. She found a broken bootlace on Peter’s camp cot, used that to tie her wet hair back from her face.
By the time she emerged from the tent, Hollingforth, Black and the soldiers were ready. The men glanced her way as she appeared, then carefully looked away. Great, she told herself, I must look even more of a treat than I thought. “I’m ready, gentlemen,” she told them.
MacHeath took the lead. Black and Hollingforth, with Nikki between them, followed, while the two surviving privates took up the rear. The soldiers all had their rifles held at the ready, bayonets mounted and rounds in the chambers.
They were heading roughly southeast, Nikki noticed. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“The men we go to meet have a camp a mile or so from here,” MacHeath told her. “We should be there in less than half an hour.”
The soldiers and the explorers seemed to have little doubt that meeting with the strangers was the right thing to do. Nikki couldn’t bring herself to feel so confident. “Who are they?”
“Soldiers, most of them,” the sergeant answered without taking his eyes from the jungle around him. He chuckled. “They didn’t say so, but one military man can usually spot another. The others?” He thought for a moment. “I must say I don’t know exactly what to make of them. They’re not military, not a member of any army I’ve ever imagined. But they’re trained as well as any soldier I know, and they definitely consider the outpost to be their enemy.”
Not a member of any army I’ve ever imagined. That had a slightly ominous ring to it, Nikki thought. “They’re human?” she asked hesitantly.
MacHeath chuckled again, then cut it off. “Sorry I laughed, Miss Carlson,” he apologized, “considering what you saw at the outpost that is aye too appropriate a question. But set your mind at rest; they’re as human as you and I. I trust them, ma’am,” he went on earnestly. “I know I have no right to offer anyone’s trust but my own, but I give that willingly. I think you’ll do the same when you meet them. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Hollingforth?”
Peter nodded, smiled reassuringly at Nikki. “I’m no military man and I know little of soldiers — except for our brave colleagues here, of course — but I pride myself on being a good judge of character.”
“And you like them?” she pressed.
Peter hesitated. “Like them?” he mused. “I don’t know as I’d say that. Their manners are strange. And anyway, liking and frie
ndship can only come with time. But I did trust them.”
“You should have something in common with them, Miss Carlson,” MacHeath added. “Their weapons are much like yours, much more complicated than our trusty Westons.” He slapped his rifle with a grin of real affection on his face.
Nikki had to smile. Her doubts had lessened, although they hadn’t totally vanished. We’ll see, she told herself. Don’t borrow trouble.
The journey took longer than the half hour MacHeath had estimated. It didn’t seem that the men were lost.
Nikki’s bump of direction told her that the sergeant was leading them along as straight a course as it was possible to follow in the heavy jungle. The frequent detours they made were to bypass knots of underbrush that would have been impenetrable without machetes, not through any doubts as to their direction. The sergeant was setting a good, steady pace, but Nikki had the impression that he could have gone faster if he’d wanted. Maybe he was moderating his pace for her, she thought with a flash of anger — she never liked thinking she was being patronized. But then she saw the dark stains that were growing under Black’s arms, and the line of sweat down the back of his tan jacket. MacHeath’s taking it easy on him, she realized with a wry smile. The professor was doing his best not to slow them down — and of course he was too proud, too much into keeping a “stiff upper lip” to complain — but he was obviously not in as good shape as the younger men.
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