Drakas!
Page 32
For a minute, the road looked like a straight shot to the tower, but as they rumbled along, Hamilton could see silhouettes of entrenched defenses—cannon, he thought, and long, angular shadows of weapons he didn't recognize. The future, he thought. Is this what it's going to look like? He glanced at the bomb in the back of the tank and realized finally that Rau had volunteered him on a suicide mission, and the future, for him at least, would only be the length of time it took to get to the end of this dark and foreign road.
Rau took a sharp breath. "Can you smell them?" He hissed and stabbed a button on his console. Hamilton sniffed, but his heart was racing and he was breathing too fast to smell much of anything. A whiff of ozone caught him by surprise, deadening the pheromonic fears in his gut and he realized that the odor masked what he'd been aware of on a subconscious level.
Draka.
He stared out the window as the tank jerked and roared over the uneven terrain. They were out there—maybe dozens if not hundreds of them—waiting behind batteries of guns, or ready to step forward with their tiger teeth and overwhelming smiles.
Draka.
"How many do you think there are?" he said.
"They never send more than two or three on missions like this," said Hamilton. "Their slaves do all the work. That's why we even have a chance."
"Were you a slave?" said Hamilton.
"I was servus since I was born," hissed Rau. "Not anymore." He stabbed the ozone button again and again until the stink filled Hamilton's nose and mouth.
How did you get away? Hamilton wanted to know, but he didn't get a chance to ask. Rau gunned the engine and the tank bolted forward. Blades of blue light swung down like swords from overhead artillery. They traced across the hood of the tank and Rau swerved. The tank blundered as explosions ripped the road, blue flashes muffled by the engine and Rau's furious bellow. He dodged recklessly around sudden gaping holes and the tank banged and groaned as he manhandled it through spews of dirt. Hamilton kept his finger poised over the red bomb-button, his hand so stiff, it was cramping. He made a fist and held it over the button, keeping his eyes on the harsh lights of the distant gantry, which loomed over them now, so close and tall, he could no longer see the top of it through the windshield.
A barricade rose in front of them, lined across the top with men and artillery. Bright blue light washed across the hood and touched the windshield. The intensity half-blinded Hamilton and he threw his arm up to cover his eyes. The tank blundered and coughed and Hamilton felt the front end buckle as a tire blew despite its sheathing. Rau let out an animal cry and punched the accelerator to the floor. The high buttressed wall of Draka slaves and unrecognizable guns towered over them. Hamilton braced himself and the tank slammed against the wall. Rau hunched over his joystick, teeth clenched, forcing the engine, his face stained by red and green lights. The treads spun. The metal body groaned. For a moment, everything seemed suspended in the darkness, an impending disaster at pause for a single, fragile second. Then Rau jabbed a button on the control panel and launched the last missile at point-blank range.
The wall of men and artillery vanished in a blinding burst of light and heat. It resonated through the tank, through the ground, and into the roots of Hamilton's teeth. It made hot images inside his eyelids and when he could see again, Rau was driving, gunning the tank through twisted metal and ruined weaponry and barely recognizable bodies, heading for the gantried tower.
Now we've had it, thought Hamilton. "Where are they?" he said, and peered into the lights for some trace of even bigger guns, with all available Draka closing ranks to kill them once and for all.
"Can't you smell them?" hissed Rau.
Hamilton breathed deep, but he could not. The ozone stink in the cab overwhelmed everything. He glanced at Rau, whose face was bathed in sweat. He was gripping the joystick with both hands holding it with grim determination, as though it was burning his palms. The light from the molehole tower bathed his face in garish shades of black and white, but his eyes were huge and his pupils wide, despite the glare. To Hamilton's amazement, Rau let the tank roll to a stop.
"What're you doing?" whispered Hamilton.
Rau gave him a wild, harried look. "You can't smell them."
"No—how can you?"
"I'm bred for them," said Rau. "You're not." He shoved himself out of the driver's seat and grabbed Hamilton, pulling him toward the joystick. "You have to drive. You understand? You have to."
"But I don't know—I mean where the hell are we going?" Hamilton slid behind the joystick. The seat felt hot and damp with sweat. He found the accelerator with his foot. The tank jerked and roared when he touched it, as responsive as an expensive sports car.
Rau pointed to a dark opening in the tower's floodlit exterior. "There," he said in a dull voice. "We're going in there." He made a fist and held it over the bomb-button. The fist shook like a leaf in a strong wind. "Go," whispered Rau. "Go!"
Hamilton drove. The tank leaped forward as he leaned over the joystick. The deflated front tire made it difficult to steer but not impossible. He leaned against the pull and aimed the tank at the opening, which, he could see now was as big as the side of a barn. He had time to wonder if the tank was out of bullets as well as missiles before they surged into the bowels of the tower.
Dirt road turned to smooth pavement. The tank's lurching gait evened out into a bumpy ride. Hamilton craned his neck to see out the gritty windshield. Ahead and above them, some Frankensteinian mechanism rose through the interior of the tower, cupped in a curve of white walls which rose like a second sky. The machinery wound upwards like a twisted ladder from the bottom of this immense well. A molehole? Aptly named, thought Hamilton, and glanced ahead to see the Draka.
Three of them, all in black, standing between the tank and the molehole machinery.
Two women and a man. Five hundred meters away, Hamilton felt as though he could see every feature, every hair on their heads, every wrinkle of bad intent around their mouths. He could see how beautiful they were, how gentle they could be. He could almost smell . . . .
"Drive!" yelped Rau. "Just drive!"
Hamilton shoved the accelerator to the floor and the tank lurched forward, bumbling on its deflated wheel, faster and faster. The scent of flowers filled the cab, and he heard Rau take a gasping breath. With only a few hundred meters between them and the tank, the Draka, dead ahead, didn't budge.
What in heaven's name are you doing? said a kindly, concerned voice inside Hamilton's head, and the flower scent turned thicker.
Was that how they really sounded? thought Hamilton in surprise. How could he run down a being so gentle?
"Drive!" cried Rau, and huddled in his seat, fists pressed against his face, knees against his chin. "Drive!"
Hamilton looked down at his foot where it pressed the pedal to the floor. The smell in the cab changed ever so slightly to ferns and damp woodlands and he thought of the painting he'd torn to pieces at home after she had set foot in his apartment. He thought of the delicate flowers he'd spent hours feathering with the brush, and the lion lying peacefully in the shade. He thought of her and how she'd showed him the true face of his painted predators.
He looked up.
The Draka still hadn't moved. Beside him, Rau let out a sob of real anguish. The space between the tank and the smiling, black-clad tigers closed with dreamlike slowness. He could see their eyes now, brown and placid, so harmless when you saw them up close.
Stop, said the voice in his head.
"Stop," croaked Rau in the passenger seat. "Stop!" he shouted, and as the tank bore down on the immovable Draka, he screamed it, "STOP!" Hamilton pressed hard on the pedal and squeezed his eyes shut.
Did they leap aside, or was the clattering unevenness under the front tires made when he'd run them over, three at once? Hamilton had no idea, and there were no rearview mirrors to check the damage, but the voice in his mind vanished, and the smell of flowers in the cab abruptly seemed stale. He looked at Rau, and was am
azed to see tears streaming down his face.
"Did I kill them?" demanded Hamilton, but Rau didn't say anything, just pointed to a red rectangle, directly under the climbing ladder of machinery and in the very center of the tower's floor.
"Hurry," he panted. "Before they realize what's happening."
Did the floor shake? Did the air seem to tremble? Hamilton aimed the tank for the red rectangle, even though he couldn't quite focus on it. A side effect of the Drakan pheromone attack, he thought and blinked hard to clear his vision, but the rectangle quivered before him like a mirage.
"What the hell?" he said and glanced at Rau for an explanation, but Rau was tapping buttons on the control panel. The quivering air thickened and Hamilton felt his stomach lurch. The tower itself seemed to vibrate. "What the hell's happening?" demanded Hamilton. He hit the brakes, but the tank rumbled forward without hesitation.
Rau reached behind him to make some adjustment to the bomb. Hamilton heard the casing snap, like a suitcase opening. "Now," Rau said in an almost reverent whisper, "you'll get a chance to see their world."
The front wheels of the tank touched the edge of the rectangle and Hamilton realized it wasn't a part of the floor at all. It was a hole. A deep hole. A deep red hole that plunged straight down to a distance he couldn't even judge.
The tank tipped forward. Hamilton let out a yell. Rau punched the red bomb-button and the top of the tank flew open. As the bomb ejected, Hamilton felt a weird surge of relief that they would fall away safely from the explosion and that this wasn't a suicide mission at all, but Rau's words echoed in his head—their world—and his heart contracted with terror.
He felt it when the bomb went off. Not a blast or a noise or even a feeling of being pushed from behind. He just knew, and as they fell through the expanse of red space, he could sense the tower collapsing, the disintegrating tangle of machinery—maybe even the parts of Baltimore above the Drakan burrows falling like some unlikely and unexplainable earthquake. He squinted at the thinning scarlet outside, and realized they were no longer underground. The were airborne, high in dense clouds.
"The molehole," said Rau. "It's falling in behind us."
"The bomb destroyed it?" said Hamilton. "But where are we now?"
"We're following the distortion in space and time—the hole—to its destination," said Rau, and he took a ragged breath. "You've saved your planet," he said. "You should be proud."
Hamilton peered out the window. Now he could see a wide sweep of grassy plains below them, and snowcapped mountains. The tank was descending, but not in an uncontrolled way. A shadow crossed his face and he glanced up to see stubby wings extending from behind the cab. He looked down again. Pristine rivers cut the side of a mountain. He could see a waterfall arcing down a green cliffside, limned with rainbows.
"This is their world?" he whispered.
Rau nodded wearily.
The tank-plane—whatever it was—swept lower over another wide savannah, and Hamilton could see animals. Horses, he thought, and marveled at the size of the wild herd as it galloped through lush grass. Then he thought he saw riders, but that wasn't right either. The bodies of the men and women and cavorting children emerged from where the horse's necks should have been. The riders and the horses were one being. Centaurs he thought in utter astonishment and stared until the herd was well behind them and his neck hurt from twisting at such an awkward angle.
"I just saw centaurs," he said to Rau, who just nodded, like this was nothing worth commenting on.
The tank swooped lower. They flew over a large watering hole filled with hippos, surrounded by zebras, punctuated at a distance by content-looking lions. The surreality and at the same time, the familiarity of the scene struck Hamilton like a blow to the chest. It could have been one of his paintings, spread out below in flesh and fur, water and mud.
He wanted to ask Rau where these creatures had come from, and how African animals and mythical beasts could coexist, or exist at all on what was supposed to be an alien planet as far as he knew, but the tank rushed over a pine forest, descended into a valley, and that was when Rau sat up straight. He broke into a relieved grin and pointed at the column of rising smoke in the distance.
"Look," he said. "The Samothracians are here."
In the valley, the remains of a village burned and smoked. Hamilton had a clear view of the human bodies scattered on the cobbled walks, blood draining down the hill in dark rivulets. The largest of the burning buildings was a tower, just like the one buried in the bowels of Baltimore, and it had crumbled to half its height. Gleaming winged vehicles, about the size of a small airplane swooped around the tower and cruised just above the ground, strafing survivors with startling blue bolts of light.
"What's going on?" he said. "The Draka did this?"
Rau shook his head. "This was a servus village. They were the molehole engineers. They're loyalists. They couldn't be spared. They would have fixed everything we destroyed."
He tapped the controls and the tank descended on its stubby wings, angling lower over the decimated houses and dead bodies. Hamilton could see children, limp on the ground like they were sleeping. There was a dead dog. Here was a roofless house with a garden in back. Someone had painted a mural on the back wall of the yard and Hamilton got a glimpse of it as the tank angled for a landing.
A black lion and a lamb with a curly white coat lay together in a bed of red roses, watching each other warily with the unmistakable expressions of predator and prey. Even from a distance Hamilton thought the work had the look of ironic parody. He glanced into the distance where the centaurs and lions and gazelles frolicked beyond the hills, then back to the blackened remains of the town below.
Not a peaceable kingdom in sight. Not now. Not ever.
Drakas!
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Custer Under the Baobab
Hewn in Pieces For the Lord
WRITTEN BY THE WIND A Story of the Draka
THE TRADESMEN
The Big Lie
The Greatest Danger
Home is Where the Heart Is
The Last Word
A Walk in the Park
Hunting the Snark
UPON THEIR BACKS, TO BITE 'EM
The Peaceable Kingdom