Recluce Tales

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “The lasers should have been able to do far more than just char the trees and undergrowth,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, ser,” replied Thaeron, from the rear of the groundscout. “I’ve got Gorran in the turret, and all the others are armed and ready.”

  “Good.” Kiedral watched closely as Fhostah guided the groundscout along the uneven surface of the rough-graded road, the first time that they had encountered such roughness. On each side, the trees had been removed a mere ten yards or so back from the shoulder of the road, with only low-cut stumps remaining—but there were already shoots rising from the stumps, and it appeared to Kiedral that the bark with scars and burns on the trees beyond the cleared area was already beginning to heal over.

  Another kay ahead, the road ended in a wall of trees, none of which showed any sign of burning or cutting. What Kiedral did not expect was to see the pair of dozers parked neatly beside a temporary plastfoam dome. Farther to one side was the biogester with its biofuel tanks. None of the vehicles appeared damaged. Nor did the plastfoam dome show any signs of an attack … except that the door flap was open.

  Kiedral lifted the portable comm unit. “Main base, Star One, comm check.”

  There was a crackle of static … and then nothing. He frowned and checked the power indicator, but the unit showed full power. He’d been able to reach main base less than a stan before, with a clear signal.

  Fhostah glanced at him for a moment. “Must be some sort of dead area, ser.”

  “Must be.” You hope it’s just that.

  After a moment, Kiedral turned. “Squad Leader, we’ll hold here in the groundscout for a bit to see if anyone on the team appears.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  After a quarter standard hour, during which neither local animals nor team members appeared, Kiedral decided it was time to look around. “Thaeron, leave Gorran at the turret. The rest of us will disembark and check out the situation.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Recalling the encounter with the miniature flying dino-monster, Kiedral had his slug-thrower in hand when he stepped out of the groundscout. All the combat techs also had their weapons at the ready.

  “Have them check out the dome,” ordered Kiedral.

  “Jaslak, Zhalert, you two look into the dome.” Thaeron gestured toward the whitish dome that looked like a very out-of-place overgrown mushroom against the trees that were within meters of the curved plastfoam.

  Kiedral slowly turned in a full circle, taking in the trees surrounding the clearing that had been created by the team. The trees seemed to be of two general types, large overarching giants that stood close to seventy-five meters, if not taller, and lower undergrowth trees, below which were knee-high to shoulder-high bushes and vines, although Kiedral could see spaces between the bushes that might have been paths. All the leaves, whatever their shapes, were a deep dark green, not surprisingly to Kiedral, given the greenish-blue sky and the too-white sun. The trees were so tall that, even at mid-afternoon, much of the clearing was still in shade.

  From every stump rose green shoots, some of them more than a meter in height.

  In four days?

  “Ser! There’s no one in the dome,” called Jaslak, backing away from the doorway. “Just gray mounds.”

  “The whole inside is filled with things like mushrooms,” added Zhalert, following the other tech back from the dome.

  “Is there any sign of the crew?” asked Kiedral.

  “There’s no way to tell unless we burn away that gray slimy stuff.”

  “Go ahead and do it.” Kiedral suspected what they’d find, but he had to know. “Just burn through the plastfoam from outside, and keep as much distance as you can.”

  Zhalert widened the beam focus, leveled the laser at the side of the portable dome, then triggered the weapon. Immediately, the thin foam vanished under the heat, but in moments, a fine spray of something spewed into the air from the gray mass that had been inside the dome.

  “Jaslak!” snapped Kiedral. “Widen your beam and sweep that dust or spray! Don’t let it get close to you or anyone!”

  Jaslak barely managed to get the beam wide enough before a tendril of the grayish spores reached him. He kept sweeping the beam across the spores as Zhalert kept his weapon on what had been the interior of the dome.

  “The rest of you watch the trees,” Kiedral ordered, belatedly following his own advice, if occasionally letting his eyes scan the smoking mass that had been a portable dome—theoretically strong enough to stop any creature ever encountered. But then, he, or the creators of the portable dwelling, hadn’t considered carnivorous fungi, or the equivalent.

  When the two techs finished, the upper dome was completely vaporized, and all that remained on the smoking plastform floor, so shot through with holes that it resembled a sieve, was bits of metal—from uniforms, boots, and equipment.

  “Not even bones…,” murmured the squad leader.

  In less than five days. Kiedral wanted to shake his head. Instead, he turned, once more scanning the dark and looming forest, before asking, “Can you tell how many were caught in the dome?”

  After several moments, Thaeron replied, “Look to be four belt buckles.”

  “That’s only half the team. Check the dozers.” Kiedral continued to scan the surrounding forest. For all the stillness, or perhaps because of it, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of imminent danger. While the remaining combat techs also kept scanning the trees, in looking them over, Kiedral had the feeling that only the redheaded Ryaelth shared his sense of danger, although he couldn’t have said why.

  He eased toward the dozers, well back of Thaeron and Baeltyn.

  “There’s more stuff growing into the dozers. The composites and organics are half-gone,” said Thaeron, his voice containing a tone halfway between amazement and horror.

  “The plants don’t like metal, then,” suggested Kiedral.

  “Doesn’t seem so.”

  “Are there any small animals there?”

  “No, ser.”

  “Any sign of other team members?”

  Before the squad leader could respond, a black shape appeared to fly out of the trees to the east of the dozers, then bounded toward Thaeron and Baeltyn, stopping abruptly short of the shoots that had grown from some of the stumps before it flared into flame as Ryaelth beamed the shoots. The huge catlike creature paused, and in that moment, Ryaelth did not try her weapon on it, but instead turned the beam on one of the charred tree trunks, letting the laser cut through the tough wood. How she managed it, Kiedral wasn’t certain, given that the exploration team’s lasers hadn’t managed the task, but her judgment and aim were accurate enough that the heavy trunk slammed down on the creature’s hindquarters, pinning it in place—although the scream it uttered not only shivered his ears, but split through his thoughts.

  What sort of creatures are these? Kiedral didn’t have time for more speculation. A massive green lizard, far larger than any replica of any ancient dinosaur he’d ever seen, glided out of the deep woods to the west, surging toward the groundscout, despite the blasts from the turret that shimmered off its shining scales.

  Kiedral lifted the slug-thrower, firing directly at the beast’s left eye.

  White flame flared from the lizard, somehow meeting and deflecting the slug.

  Kiedral fired again, this time willing, if against hope, the slugs into those saucer-sized black orbs.

  Both eyes exploded in reddish-white flame, and the giant lizard threshed in pain, its tail whipping back and forth and snapping the trunks of several of the smaller undergrowth trees. After a time, the threshing subsided, and the huge body lay still. By then, Kiedral had reloaded.

  “How … did you … do that, ser?” stammered the squad leader from behind Kiedral.

  “It might be that the slugs are metal.” Kiedral had the feeling there was more than metal involved, but he wasn’t about to try to explain that feeling.

  “It could be,” Thaeron half-agreed. />
  “Burn away enough of the vegetation around the dozers so that we can tell if any of the team died there.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  The vice marshal walked quickly toward Tech Ryaelth.

  Her eyes snapped toward him, and he almost reeled at what lay there … yet … she was the one who took a half step back. “Ser?”

  “How—” Kiedral stopped after that single word, realizing that his honest question would sound like an accusation if he continued in that hard tone “Excuse me, Tech Ryaelth,” he began more quietly, “how did you manage to cut through that tree with a laser beamer … when the exploration team couldn’t manage it with high-powered cutters?”

  “I couldn’t say, ser.”

  Kiedral waited, hoping she’d say more, and knowing she wouldn’t if he jumped in with more questions. Instead, he smiled knowingly and sympathetically.

  “I really couldn’t say, ser.” She paused. “I did what you did when you shot that small dinosaur out of the air. I just concentrated on making sure the weapon did what I thought it should.”

  Kiedral almost said something, but didn’t. Rather, he thought about what she had said … and then realized what lay behind the words. Then he nodded. “Just keep doing that.”

  He walked closer to the now-dead black cat creature, careful to stay well out of reach of the thing as he studied it. Overall, it was close to twice the size of a tiger, if with similar musculature, and a jet-black coat. The claws, still extended in death, looked razor sharp and extended far more than finger length, and the black fangs were twice the length of the claws. He couldn’t help but wonder what it hunted. The giant lizards? Or something else equally fearsome?

  He looked toward the forest again.

  “Too quiet, ser,” said Ryaelth. “Far too quiet.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right.” He turned and walked back to where Thaeron stood beside the dozers. Smoke and steam wreathed the damaged equipment.

  “There’s no sign of anything, ser,” said the squad leader. “The laser cutters in the tool bins still seem to work.”

  “The bins are metal?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “We’ll cover all the cleared area—weapons at the ready,” announced Kiedral.

  It took more than a stan for him and the combat techs to walk the entire area that the exploration team had cleared. They found no trace of metal or anything else that might have indicated a fallen exploration tech. One thing that did strike Kiedral as strange was that there was a patch of ground—the only patch, besides the areas that had been burned or the road that had been cleared by the exploration techs—where nothing grew. When he looked more closely, he saw that it was an outcropping of the greenish-tinged white stone that the colony was using as a building material.

  “We won’t bivouac here,” Kiedral finally announced. “We’ll take the groundscout back to where there’s open ground.” As the old maxim went, there were times when discretion was the better part of valor, and so far as Kiedral was concerned, this was one of those times.

  “Yes, ser,” replied Thaeron, nodding his agreement as well.

  “We’ll check back on this area tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Kiedral could sense far less agreement with that, but he was the only one to nod.

  V

  Needless to say, Kiedral didn’t sleep all that well, disturbed by strange dreams filled with inchoate thoughts and emotions, and images of creatures even stranger than the green lizard and the giant black cat … or even the smaller flying monster.

  By seven hundred, after reporting to main base, which wasn’t difficult once they were clear of the forest, they were back at the exploration team site, completely in shade cast by the tall trees to the east. The plastfoam dome floor remained, as did the dozers. There was no sign of the carcasses of either the giant cat or the massive lizard.

  “Even the scavengers in this forest must be large,” said Kiedral dryly, hoping for at least a smile.

  The only one who showed any expression was Ryaelth, whose lips curled upward slightly at the corners.

  “Ser … what’s the plan of action for today?” asked Thaeron.

  “To spend some time trying to determine how best to deal with this … forest,” replied Kiedral. “It’s clear that there’s something about it that blocks our comm, among other things, as I reported to base last night.”

  “You got the comm to work, ser. I couldn’t,” Thaeron pointed out.

  That was another thing Kiedral couldn’t explain, except that he’d essentially willed the comm to operate, and it had.

  “We’re not a full combat or development team, ser,” the squad leader pointed out politely.

  “I didn’t say we’d deal with it, but we need to know more before we send anyone else out.” Or if we just have to write off this part of the continent. And Kiedral didn’t want to do that. If he had to, that was one thing, but if that happened to be the case, he wanted to know why and what the full range of dangers might be for any colonists near the forest. “First, we’ll check the dozers and the biogester to see if the forest has done any more damage. Then we’ll probe the forest…” He went on to explain.

  Less than a half stan passed before the techs reported that there had been little change since they had left the night before. Then they set up both of the heavy laser cutters facing the forest to the north of the cleared area.

  As if it had been watching them, another of the massive lizards pushed its wide head from between the lower trees and moved out of the forest and onto the cleared area that already showed regrowth. A bolt of yellow-reddish-white streaked toward the combat techs, slamming into Fhostah, who stiffened, then toppled backwards onto the dirt of the road.

  “He’s still breathing, ser,” said Zhalert, who’d knelt quickly, while keeping his eyes on the advancing lizard.

  “Get him to the groundcar.” There’s almost an aura of reddish white to everything coming out of the forest, the frigging enchanted—or accursed—forest. What if you think of darkness when you shoot? The whole idea felt stupid, yet … will seemed to play a role in everything around the forest, from shooting the lizard the day before to operating the comm.

  Ryaelth had made that point to him as well, if quietly.

  “I’ll take the laser cutter,” Kiedral said in a voice that brooked no argument as he moved forward.

  Baeltyn slipped aside, and the vice marshal eased the laser into focus in the center of the lizard’s low forehead, then pressed the stud, concentrating as he did on adding a stream of reddish white to the focused energy.

  The lizard’s head exploded, and grayish ash drifted down over the slumping body.

  Kiedral didn’t have time for any self-congratulation, because a bear larger than any he’d ever seen charged from the woods to the northeast, directly at Ryaelth, but before he could turn the laser she’d fired her laser beamer, putting a hole right through the beast’s skull. Kiedral blinked. He could have sworn that her beam had bent in striking the bear.

  A movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye, and he swung the heavy laser cutter on its tripod, zeroing in on yet another green lizard, larger than the first, whose heavy legs crushed the bushes and understory trees as it moved toward the team.

  Before Kiedral could focus his weapon, another stun-bolt flashed from the lizard, seemingly bending around Kiedral to strike Jaslak. Kiedral pressed the stud again, cold anger behind his cutting beam, a beam that widened enough to sever the lizard’s head from its body. The ground shook as the two sections of the beast crashed into the already crushed undergrowth.

  After the second lizard, Kiedral felt drained, as if he’d been running for stans, carrying a heavy pack … or struggling against a multiple g-load in combat. But this is combat, another kind of combat.

  A massive triangular head appeared at the edge of the forest, that of a serpent that wound its way swiftly toward Kiedral and the techs still standing.

  A surge of an
ger filled Kiedral—and he swept the laser across the trees of the forest.

  An area of the massive trunks and the branches above them a good ten to twenty meters deep and close to a hundred meters wide vanished in an instant blaze—along with the serpent.

  “Oh my God…,” murmured someone.

  Kiedral didn’t look to see who, keeping his eyes on the forest.

  An uneasy quiet filled the late morning.

  A serpent rose above the trees, then vanished. Then the sun vanished, and Kiedral was surrounded by gray.

  The gray turned into bulkheads, ship bulkheads, before which was a long table covered with green cloth. Behind the table were seated five marshals of the Anglorian Unity. Kiedral knew none of them.

  “Vice Marshal Kiedral, you are charged with dereliction of duty, willful endangerment of the A.U.S. Nelson and the colony vessels you escorted…”

  Kiedral could not move. Dereliction? Endangerment? Where were they when nothing worked?

  Part of his brain realized that the scene before him and in which he was enmeshed could not be transpiring. But how? The damned forest is alive … He swallowed. It’s doing this.

  He pushed aside the false images, only to find himself face-to-face with a young woman, one wearing the Institute dress uniform, her short black hair barely long enough to sweep back over her ears. Her eyes were bright.

  “You asked for orders to the Far Fleet, didn’t you? And you accepted them, didn’t you?”

  What could he say? He had.

  “You couldn’t accept Home Fleet duty? That wasn’t enough for you. I wasn’t enough for you.”

  “But you are,” he protested, knowing that he lied.

  She shook her head and vanished, and a flying monster, just like the one he had killed days before—or was it years and years later?—streaked toward him. All he could do was throw up an arm. Claws gouged his forearm, and an explosion of pain shot up his arm, like a current running from his fingertips to the top of his head.