Banshee Screams

by Clay Griffith

  He held up his hands, surprised by the emotion he saw on the Ranger's face. "Don't get me wrong. I want to help him, but I'm not a skilled surgeon; I just don't think I could go in and get these needles without killing him myself."

  "My God!" Debbi exclaimed in frustration. "You can't say how he got the lesions. You don't know how long he's had them. You don't know anything about sykers. You're not qualified to be a surgeon. What the hell kind of doctor are you, anyway?" She pointed at the row of beakers. "And I've got news for you, Doctor. Collecting heads in jars doesn't qualify as practicing medicine!"

  Doc Dazy put his hands in the pockets of his worn out, baggy trousers. "Well, actually, in college I specialized in pathology. I wasn't very good at cutting live people. But then I found myself in the UN Medical Corps during the war. I mainly dealt with young men and women screaming for their mothers while they bled to death.

  "I came to Temptation because I thought I'd get a chance to help some living people and see them get better. So now I'm the only doctor in a town of ten thousand. I spend my time trying to stretch nonexistent supplies and make do with equipment that's broken more often than not. That is, when I don't spend my time with a constant parade of emergencies that no one has ever encountered before. There aren't a heck of a lot of clinical studies on the walking dead or creatures whose bite dissolves bone." He pointed into the distance. "You know, I stood in that ward down the hall a couple of months ago when the batrats came and watched more than two hundred people die. I knew most of them. I'd treated them for colds or broken bones. I brought some of them into the world. But I had to look into the faces of their mothers or husbands and tell them there was nothing I could do. Now, I realize that I'm only trained to work with dead people and with wounded soldiers. I don't have a very good bedside manner, so sometimes I can come off glib because I get tired of telling people their loved ones are going to die. I wish I had the answer all the time. But I don't."

  The Doctor broke off, but he didn't look away from the Ranger.

  Debbi dropped her gaze to the floor. "Yeah. Look, I'm sorry, Doc. I was out of line. I know you're doing the best you can. I'm not mad at you; it's me."

  Dazy was quiet a moment, but then he nodded. "I'll take a look at these needles and I'll try another scan to see if I can locate them in his body." He took a few of the needles and placed them in a petri dish. "But even if they are the cause of the lesions and I can remove them, I have my doubts about it reversing his condition."

  "So you think he's going to die no matter what we do?"

  "I think so. But remember the take-home message; I don't know always what I'm talking about." He offered a quirky grin.

  Debbi was surprised to find herself returning it. Unfortunately, it didn't last. "Can I see him?"

  "Sure. Just be prepared. His condition has probably deteriorated considerably since you last saw him."

  Hallow lay in a bed in an isolated part of the ward with a curtain drawn around him. The Doctor felt it was better the other patients didn't see a syker lying next to them. They might assume he was one of the Legionnaires.

  Debbi slipped inside the curtain and looked at the man she now considered to be her friend. His eyes were closed, but she could see his eyeballs twitching beneath the lids. His mouth gaped open and he breathed raggedly through his mouth. He looked drawn and ghostly.

  It seemed that lately she spent most of her time flitting from one bedside to another. First Ross, now Hallow. She desperately craved a respite from the insanity that threatened to overwhelm her defenses.

  Debbi knelt next to the bed and laid a hand on Hallow's arm. It felt limp and frail. His dark skin was clammy. She waited for that familiar tapping at her mind.

  The moments passed without attempted contact. The psychic space between them stretched out. Debbi got a dark, empty feeling. Hallow was not reaching out to her. She couldn't understand it. How could Hallow have come to this wretched state so quickly?

  The black needles had to be the cause of his condition. And Debbi was to blame for that. She had brought him to Temptation and now he was dying because of it. Marat may have pulled the trigger, but she was the one who made Hallow a target She had to help him.

  Debbi flew the Stallion north from Temptation into the canyon lands. Her goal was the Red River Valley, that dark and haunted area where twenty years ago the United Nations Expeditionary Force and the anouks fought one of the great battles of the colonial wars. Although battles and massacres occurred everywhere on the windswept surface of Banshee, it was the Red River Valley that remained the greatest monument of sorrow for both humans and anouks.

  Debbi's mind wasn't on the symbolism of the region, or even on the rumors of unspeakable, shambling horrors that inhabited it. She wanted to find Martool. Both Debbi and Ross would have died but for the help of that anouk shaman, who asked nothing in return. Martool had healing powers. Now Debbi intended to ask her, to beg her if necessary, to use those powers on Hallow.

  The unconscious syker lay strapped to a stretcher behind the two seats in the Stallion's cab. His rapid eye movement had ceased. His hands were drawn up over his chest, wrists palsied at weird angles. His breathing was growing shallower.

  He was clearly dying.

  Ross had not been happy that Debbi was doing this. She had gone over maps with him to pinpoint the spot where she had first encountered Martool's people. Ross wanted to go with her, but she argued against it. Besides the fact that he wasn't up to such a trip yet, there was the whole anouk thing. Even when Martool had helped Debbi, the anouk woman had to deal with the smoldering antipathy of her warriors toward Colonial Rangers. When they had found Ross badly injured, Martool had not offered to heal him; she simply disappeared back into her caves. It would be hard enough to convince Martool to help a syker who had served in the old Legion. No doubt Martool had memories of the war or, at least, had grown up with members of her tribe or clan who had lived through Legionary bloodshed. And if Debbi arrived with more Rangers, Martool might refuse to open her doors at all.

  Debbi checked the map against the landscape. Some of the landmarks looked familiar. She recalled suddenly that her last trip to the Red River ended with her flying back to Temptation over this same terrain in this same Stallion with a badly wounded Ross in the same place Hallow now occupied. It did little to ease her mind. She was taking a gamble. Debbi had to face the fact that she had possibly removed Hallow from the only chance he might have had back in Temptation. Even though Dazy didn't sound all that confident, he was at least willing to try. She prayed she had made the right choice on behalf of Hallow.

  She flew to the lip of the magnificent Red River canyon. It was well over three miles across at this point, a sea of jagged buttes and ravines towering over a crimson ribbon of water far below. She hovered the Stallion and lowered it onto a stable rock shelf. Barely one hundred yards away was the head of a narrow path into the canyon. That path was where she had encountered Martool's anouk warriors and where she hoped to find them again.

  Debbi shut down the Stallion's engines. She twisted in her seat to check Hallow. He huffed light breaths through his open mouth. She lightly stroked the syker's rigored hand.

  She climbed out of the Stallion and locked it. She walked across the rocky ground as the wind at the canyon rim battered her. She began to descend the path with only the barest idea of how to find Martool.

  It was a nerve-wracking walk. The loneliness of the area oppressed her and brought all the horrific tales of the Red River to mind. The path was only a narrow ledge clinging to the rock face. The swirling winds buffeted her so hard she frequently had to place her right hand on the stone wall to assuage the feeling of being torn from the ledge. The wind also brought strange sounds. She whirled around several times, her hand flashing to her sidearm, imagining that Quantrill's lunatic servants or bloodthirsty feline monsters were stalking her.

  She finally reached the general area that she thought resembled the place where she first saw the anouks of Martoo
l's clan. However, fifty feet further along the path also looked very similar. And below her as she watched the path wind into the canyon, she saw many more areas that could have been the spot as well. Even so, she searched the rock face for one of the hidden doorways that the anouks used.

  She found nothing.

  She drew in her breath and shouted, "Martool!"

  The name was nearly lost in the wind as soon as it left her lungs. She began to realize that this mission of mercy was in vain. Perhaps she had known it was hopeless from the beginning, but she had to try for her sake if not for Hallow's.

  "Martool!" she yelled again.

  She felt something small hit her head and shoulder. A pebble dropped to her feet, followed by another. She looked up.

  An anouk was above her astride a chanouk. The great beast glared down from twenty feet above Debbi's head. It clung to the sheer rock face with its massive claws like a cat scaling its way headfirst down a tree. The native warrior was strapped into the saddle, holding a javelin made of shiny, black tannis rock.

  Then she saw three anouks blocking the path behind her. Debbi knew they had not followed her down, so the entrance she sought must be nearby. Grim faced, they glared at her. Two of them, a male and female, carried automatic rifles and the third, a male, hefted a black tannis war ax. She took several steps back and held her hands out in front of her "I'm looking for Martool," she said. "Martool. I'm a friend."

  The chanouk above her carefully scrabbled its way over the rock face, lifting and re-affixing one clawed foot at a time like a rock climber, keeping itself directly over Debbi. If it leaped on her, she would be dead whether she could clear her holster for a shot or not. She had to show them she meant no harm.

  She slowly reached her left hand to her belt.

  The anouks tensed and raised their weapons.

  "Whoa!" Debbi shook her head. In her best calming voice, she said, "I'm removing my weapon. Friend."

  She continued the creeping motion with her hand. It took a little more fiddling with the buckle than she was comfortable with, but finally her heavy gun belt dropped to the ground.

  "I need to see Martool," Debbi said again. "Do you understand me?"

  The warriors came at her. One of them kicked the gun belt away.

  "Martool!" Debbi shouted at them. "Take me to Martool!"

  The warrior with the ax shoved the Ranger hard against the cliff. He raised the weapon over his head and let out a war scream. Debbi tensed, ready to fight.

  A muscular, purple-skinned arm appeared across Debbi's line of vision and seized the shaft of the war ax. A large anouk stepped between her and the three warriors. They all began to argue violently. Debbi picked up very little of the language, but she heard the new arrival saying "Martool" several times. While the confrontation continued, she measured the distance to her gun belt on the path.

  The three aggressive warriors backed up and hesitantly lowered their weapons in the face of the new anouk's vigorous shouting. The new arrival turned to face Debbi.

  The first thing she saw was a battered Colonial Ranger badge pinned to his tunic. She realized with a rush of excitement that it was her old badge.

  "Sahrin," she said with recognition.

  Sahrin nodded and touched the badge. "Dallas."

  "That's right!" she said eagerly. "Can you take me to Martool?"

  He knelt and picked up her gun belt while giving the other warriors a savage glare. He motioned for Debbi to follow.

  She took a deep breath. Now she'd have to find another gift to give this guy.

  Chapter 16

  Debbi was taken through a well-hidden door in the cliff wall and into a seemingly interminable series of passageways carved into the tannis rock leading ever downward. The air grew cooler as they descended. Sahrin stayed close to her, shielding her from prying eyes. He finally brought Debbi to a large chamber hollowed out of the rock where Martool sat wrapped in a heavy fur. The tall, stately anouk female seemed unsurprised to see the Ranger appear at her doorstep.

  Despite being interrupted from meditation, Martool was happy to see Debbi, although she was careful not to be effusive in front of the other anouks who had followed the intruder. She took Debbi by the shoulders and stared into the human with those large, black eyes as if looking for something.

  A sense of relief washed over Debbi at seeing the shaman. She clasped Martool's long arms and smiled warmly.

  "It is good to see you again, Debbi." Martool's soft-spoken voice was a welcome sound after her ordeal.

  "Not as much as it does me good to see you, my friend," Debbi returned. "I need your help desperately."

  "You have but to ask," Martool replied openly.

  However, when Debbi explained the purpose of her trip, the anouk woman's face froze hard and she lapsed into thought. The hesitation made Debbi even more frantic. It already had been over an hour since she left Hallow in the Stallion.

  Martool said, "I will go with you and examine your friend. But he cannot be brought here."

  "Thank you," Debbi said. "That's all I ask. Can you come now?"

  "Yes." Martool pointed at several of the anouks and spoke in a low voice to Sahrin. She then put an arm around Debbi's shoulder, demonstrating open acceptance to the surprised and muttering crowd, and led the Ranger back the way they had come. Sahrin followed with a group of armed warriors, still carrying Debbi's gun belt over his shoulder.

  As Debbi and Martool walked through the torch lit passages, the anouk leaned close and said, "You have been through much since we last met."

  "Yeah. Few things here and there."

  "You've encountered Tekkeng. And survived."

  Debbi shook her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

  "Tekkeng. He is a what humans call a Skinny."

  "Oh." Debbi felt her face flush and she was overcome by hatred. The violence of the reaction surprised her. "How do you know?"

  "I can always tell where Tekkeng has been. He leaves an unmistakable . . . mark. I can sense it in you."

  Debbi hadn't felt Martool in her mind. She had come to feel confident in her inexplicably heightened psychic defenses; it was a shock that the anouk circumvented it so easily.

  "Don't," Debbi said quietly. "Don't go in my head."

  "I didn't," Martool replied. "I wouldn't do such a thing. But you and I have a connection now. I'm sorry if you feel it's an unjust invasion, but it's a natural remnant of my treating you when you were here last. Certain elements of your self are clear to me, and always will be. It requires nothing from me but opening my eyes. And I am always attuned to Tekkeng's sign."

  Debbi didn't respond.

  Martool continued, "You should be proud. There are few anouks and no humans who have faced Tekkeng and lived. I thought I sensed something special in you when you were here before, and this is clear proof."

  Debbi didn't want anyone telling her how special she was. She didn't feel special. She felt as if she were hanging onto the life she once knew by her fingernails. All her vaunted exploits had been born out of sheer desperation, nothing else.

  Martool sensed Debbi's discomfort and remained quiet for the rest of the trip through the passageways. Finally, they approached a blank wall.

  Debbi felt a surge of panic. She was being led into a dead end. Ten heavily armed warriors followed them.

  Martool waved her arm. An opening appeared in the wall and they passed out into the roaring wind. Debbi was disoriented to suddenly go from tight rock corridors out onto the edge of a wild cliff with the river far below. The hard wind and the expanse of horizon helped remind her of her mission and remove the pall she'd been under inside the tunnels.

  Getting her bearings quickly, she immediately began trudging up the path toward the canyon rim several miles away, setting a hard pace that the anouks had little trouble following.

  Soon they arrived at the Stallion. Debbi walked toward the vehicle, but she noticed Martool stopped at the head of the path. Her warriors flowed around her and spread
out to surround the Stallion. Several of them carried automatic rifles and others more traditional weapons. They searched the immediate area for hidden dangers. Sahrin and his partner that Debbi remembered from her last visit, the hard-featured Fareel, stood near. She couldn't tell if they felt protective or were preparing to strike her down should this be a trap as, no doubt, some of the anouks suspected it was. Fareel unhooked an atax, a star-shaped throwing weapon made of tannis, from his belt and held it at the ready. Sahrin motioned for Debbi to approach the Stallion.

  Debbi unlocked the door and opened it. She turned to Martool. "He's inside."

  Sahrin climbed into the cab of the Stallion with a tannis war ax in his hand. He investigated behind the seat and, apparently satisfied, withdrew and signaled to Martool that it was all clear.

  The shaman swept forward, touched Debbi lightly on the shoulder as she passed, and lifted herself into the cab. Debbi followed. Martool situated herself in the narrow space between the seats and knelt over Hallow. She studied the syker for a moment before gently placing her hands on his forehead.

  The shaman winced.

  Martool pulled her hands away and looked back at Debbi. "This man is in very bad condition. What happened to him?"

  "I'm not sure. He was recently shot by the black gun needles."

  Martool continued to stare at the Ranger. "I remember the weapon. I told you it was a hideous weapon. It is destroying him."

  "Can you help him?" Debbi looked at Hallow and for the first time noticed boils beginning to rise on his face. "Oh God. He's much worse."

  Martool briefly considered the situation and said in a soft voice, "I can't help him here. We will take him in."

  "Thank you. What can I do?"

  From outside came a high-pitched scream. Both Debbi and Martool looked up as a heavy weight slammed against the passenger window. It was the body of an anouk and it slid down leaving a trail of blood on the window.

  Debbi leaped out the door with Martool close on her heels. Several warriors raced past the Stallion responding to the scream. Debbi came around the front of the vehicle and saw Fareel attending the bloody warrior lying in a heap on the ground.