THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT
Page 53
Dr. Bigelow paid no attention to the exchange between Karr and Tlalok. Even more fixated than before, he bent over, reached as far as he could under the curving reactor casing, and swiped a finger across the offending panel. It came away coated in sickly white ichor. Bigelow sniffed and recoiled from the awful aroma.
"Ugh. Whatever can this be?"
A heavy clunk sounded from behind the reactor, like a hatch falling open. Bigelow tensed, slowly straightening up and leaning as far as he could around the end of the reactor, but before he could determine what had made the noise, the gentle purple of the null-field began to pop and sputter.
The ghutzu cavity was abruptly bathed in searing white light.
Bigelow screamed and threw his arms over his eyes. Karr clenched his eyes tight against the painful brilliance. A split second later his helmet blacked out as the molecules in the transparent bubble automatically went opaque. Thick green afterimages filled Karr's vision in the resulting darkness.
"Who's screaming?" Jenette demanded on the comset. "What's happening?"
"Unknown null-field malfunction, blinding us," Karr said through gritted teeth. "Don't know what caused it—"
"Null foe! Null foe! Null foe!" shrieked a voice.
A heavy, screeching object plowed into Karr. Karr swung from the filaments that suspended him, caroming into and dislodging one of the legs of the tripod rig. For an awful instant, Karr thought he would plummet into the well shaft, entangled in filaments, but he and the heavy object crashed to one side of the hole, the plates of his kilnsuit locking up against the force of impact. Whatever had knocked Karr down then dislodged itself and took off on four legs. Karr tried to move, but he was thoroughly entangled in filaments and tripod legs.
In a series of gradual steps, Karr's helmet began to let light back in. It stopped when the intensity of light was just below the threshold of human discomfort.
The null-field was glowing like the surface of a star. Objects around it were hard for Karr to discern, ghosts in fog. A few feet out of Karr's reach, the timing device was overturned, its emergency shut-off knob depressed, its display no longer counting down. Tlalok stood stock still in the stark radiance, his snout raised at an awkward angle. Bigelow ... where was Bigelow? There! Squinting hard, Karr could just make out the large man, feeling his way around one end of the reactor, apparently trying to locate the source of the earlier noise and, presumably, regain control of the berserk null-field.
"Bigelow wait!" Karr yelled, trying to free himself. "There's something in here with us!"
The scientist froze apprehensively. "Something benevolent...?"
"One of those in-human things from Coffin Island, I think— look out!"
A quadrupedal shape had appeared on the reactor above Bigelow. In a flash of motion, it crabbed down the casing, grabbed the large human, and, with an astonishing burst of strength, dragged Bigelow out of sight behind the end of the reactor.
Karr heard a brief scuffle.
Bigelow began to shriek.
And shriek and shriek and shriek.
Karr flailed around inside his kilnsuit, but the tangle of high-g filaments held him firmly incapacitated.
"Tlalok, help him!" Karr yelled.
"So beautiful, so beautiful..." the nearby alien moaned, paralyzed by the bright light.
Bigelow's shrieks rose in volume and pitch, becoming a white noise composed of pure, unrelenting agony.
Karr thrashed harder, fumbling with unwieldy kilnsuit gloves to untangle himself as seconds and then minutes elapsed, but still he could not aid the scientist.
Karr's comset blared with Jenette's frantic questions. "We're burning up out here! Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"
Tlalok's island was within one kiloyard of the central column of fugueship fire; Jenette and the others in the skimmer were wrapped in silvery, heat-reflective blankets. One of the four smaller flame pillars had rotated into the path of the reactor-bearing island. Trees burst into flame on its leading shore, ignited by sheer, ambient heat. The flame pillar passed, missing by less than a quarter or a kiloyard. Swarms of embers and cinders spiraled along in its wake.
And all the while horrible screaming sounded from Jenette's comset.
"They're in trouble!" she yelled to the others. "We've got to help!"
"No way!" Liberty yelled back, grabbing Jenette before the impulsive Consul could jump out of the skimmer and start running back inland. "It's half a mile to the entrance of the mound alone! You'll never make it!"
Skutch backed Liberty up. "She's right. No human can run there and back before the reactor goes up!"
"We should scram, and fast!" Dr. Marsh yelled, taking a moment from tending Panya to put in her two cents.
Jenette and the Guards exchanged confused, anxious looks. No one wanted to abandon Karr or Bigelow or Tlalok. But no one knew what to do, either.
"Arrou will go," Arrou announced.
"No," Jenette said, suddenly wishing she had not made such a suggestion in the first place.
"Arrou runs fast on four legs," Arrou pressed. "Jenette knows. Arrou makes it there, helps Karr and Bigelow and Tlalok, and runs back fast."
Jenette looked back and forth between the nearing, central column of flame and her best friend. If she just gave the order, the skimmer could whisk them all to safety. Those under the reactor mound were as good as dead anyway. If she sent Arrou in she was probably sending him to his death for no good reason. But then that was playing it safe, bean counting, measuring the value of one life against another—and that was not Jenette's way.
She swatted Arrou on the rump.
The alien bounded out of the skimmer, galloping, each leg striking the ground with such force that he kicked up little clouds of debris. A trail of them followed him inland, three melon-sized plumes, then a fist-sized plume—where his stunted right forepaw touched down—then three melon-sized plumes and a fist-sized plume....
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Karr managed to wrench the Gattler free from the tangle of filaments. Agonizingly, slowly, he began the process of isolating the tangled loops one at a time and severing them with precisely aimed bursts of cutting beam.
Bigelow had stopped screaming. Karr feared the worst.
Finally, the last filament fell away. Karr staggered to his feet. Through the space formed by the pinched waist of the null-fusion reactor and the ghutzu floor of the cavity, Karr saw a body fall to the ground. It was hard to make out in the dazzling light, but it crawled on four legs and its hide glistened like tooled leather. Karr didn't know how Bigelow had overcome the in-human, but he raised the Gattler, increasing the cutting beam power setting, and took a step closer, ready to blast the creature out of existence. However, there was then more movement around the end of the reactor to Karr's right. A large form, bracing itself against the casing with its arms, staggered into view. Karr recognized Bigelow's rotund shape instantly. The scientist was in rough shape. Even in the bright glare Karr could see that Bigelow's clothing had been shredded off; his head hung low on his chest; blood dripped copiously from many orderly lacerations running up and down his legs and arms, bisecting his belly and chest, slashing around his ankles, wrists and neck. Karr moved to help.
The crawling form behind the reactor moaned.
Bigelow lurched on his two legs, grabbing frantically for a handhold on the reactor, and almost fell. Karr lent an arm for support.
"You need to get out of here!" Karr said. "Can you walk?"
Bigelow nodded and took another step, and slipped again. Karr grabbed tightly. Bigelow's arm skin sloughed off in Karr's hand. Like a sleeve parting at the seam, it came free. Bigelow groaned, a horrible deep sound. His tortured face tilted up, exposing raw meat sockets where eyes ought to be. Tattered facial flesh hung limp where the vile in-human had tortured him. Still, it was a miracle Bigelow was alive.
Wavering, Big
elow motioned Karr closer, as if he wanted to whisper to Karr. Letting the Gattler dangle by its shoulder strap, Karr took hold of the large man with both hands and leaned close.
Bigelow's face exploded.
A dozen foot-long, radial teeth shot out, first stretching and then tearing right through Bigelow's distorted cheek and forehead flesh like an evil flower opening. The blades clamped down on Karr's helmet as hands with far too many thumbs and talons reached out, clutching and ripping the Gattler out of Karr's arms. Karr realized the enormity of his misidentification as he was then seized and slammed into the reactor casing.
It was not Dr. Bigelow.
It was an in-human wearing Bigelow's bloody skin! And the body on the ground behind the reactor...? Karr stole a second look as it raised a shuddering, pleading, five fingered hand into view. That was Dr. Bigelow, his flesh flayed off, his muscles, veins and inner organs glistening and throbbing, his lipless mouth opening wide and howling in anguish.
The in-human creature attacked. It might have been weak compared to Arrou or any other healthy Khafra, but compared to a scrawny human in a cumbersome spacesuit, the in-human was woefully strong. It could not break through the kilnsuit—and it tried very hard to do that—but it could toss Karr about the ghutzu cavity with shocking ease. The suit's interlocking plates braced against each impact, but Karr felt each blow. He could not sustain the battering forever. At some point he would pass out, which was bad enough, but very soon after that the island carrying the reactor would collide with the main hydrogen fire that raged over top of Long Reach. He and Bigelow and Tlalok would all die for nothing if Karr could not somehow regain control of the situation by then.
Halfway up the insulating ghutzu mound Arrou reached the tunnel opening. The island was very hot around him; succulent plants were withering in front of his very eyes. So he really wanted to plunge down the passage into its sheltered and cooler air, but he clawed to a halt at the entrance. Down in the far distance, bright, white radiance was flaring up from the reactor chamber and Arrou remembered Jenette mentioning that bright light was blinding Karr and Bigelow and Tlalok. Even though the light looked very beautiful (enticing, in fact), Arrou dared not charge down into it. Otherwise he would end up helpless and needing rescue just like they did. Arrou spun around, searching for anything that might help him deal with that problem.
A solution was not hard to find. Tlalok's island was littered with blinding hoods, where Tlalok's Ferals had ripped them off after doing their part to break through Kthulah's blockade. Arrou took in a stiflingly hot breath. Now was his chance to show if he could be as brave as Tlalok's Ferals. Before he could change his mind, he snatched up a blinding hood, pulled it over his head and bounded down the tunnel.
Karr lay in a battered heap to one side of the brilliant chamber as Arrou burst in. The in-human looked up from shredding detonator cables and attacked. Before Karr could utter a word of warning, the two Khafra were at each other's throats. Both Arrou and the in-human were blinded—one by a hood, the other by self mutilation—but whereas Arrou was severely handicapped by the lack of sight, the in-human had spent decades honing its other senses and scored several ferocious hits on Arrou in quick succession. Initially, Karr could not understand why Arrou was neither incapacitated by the null-field light, nor fighting as well as he should have been able to against the in-human, but then Karr perceived the ungainly hood over Arrou's head.
Karr turned up the volume on his kilnsuit's external speaker and began shouting instructions. "To your left, now above you, that's it, duck...!" Arrou began to hold his own, dodging the in-human's attacks. Karr heaved himself to his feet, panting; the kilnsuit had definitely not been designed for strenuous activity at a full g-load. A quick glance around the floor did not reveal where his Gattler had fallen, so Karr concentrated on helping Arrou. "Two paces behind you, spin, that's it—now strike!"
Arrou wound up and unleashed a massive backhand. The inhuman flew through the air, landing between Karr and the well shaft. The creature levered itself erect on its bulbous joints, but did not immediately counter strike. Instead, it felt around on the ground. Its paws closed on a long, cylindrical object. Rising up on its hind legs, the in-human lifted a multibarreled device to its shoulders and aimed at Arrou.
"Its got the Gattler!" Karr yelled as the in-human pulled the bigger, activating the cutting beam. Ghutzu vaporized under Arrou's feet as he narrowly leapt out of the way. The in-human shot again. Its aim was horribly accurate, considering that it was only using its sense of hearing to acquire its targets. This time the beam grazed Arrou's armored back. Arrou bounded blindly around the cavity, but Karr could see that it was only a matter of time before the in-human got lucky and bull's-eyed Arrou.
Karr charged at the in-human's back. Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, his heavy kilnsuit joints sounded. WHAM! Karr's impact knocked the in-human over the well shaft. Karr himself teetered on the edge. The in-human fell, whirling in midair. One of its claws grabbed Karr's leg. Karr could not move; the kilnsuit had momentarily locked up from the collision. The in-human's weight yanked. Karr lost his balance and felt himself begin to fall. The pit seemed to reach up, a hungry, swallowing mouth.
He and the in-human plummeted out of view.
"Get out! Leave me!" Bigelow's voice choked on Jenette's comset.
"Not right, not right! Come with, come with!" she heard Arrou protest in the background.
"Do as he says, Clarence!" Jenette ordered.
"No," Bigelow gasped. "I can't—I won't—live like this…."
"Get him out of here, Arrou...."
Click. The comset went dead.
"We've got to get out of the blast zone!" Liberty yelled into Jenette's ear.
Jenette shook her head. "Arrou's coming!"
"He can't make it!" Liberty objected.
"He'll make it!"
But even as Jenette uttered the words, she did not believe them. Another of the smaller pillars of fire was thundering toward Tlalok's island, and this time there would be no near miss.
Arrou struggled to carry Tlalok up the tunnel. The Feral was even bigger than Arrou. Arrou could not move very fast with such a heavy weight on his back, and the fact that he could not see just made matters worse.
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Halfway up the passage, Arrou ripped the blinding hood off his head and threw it away. Dazzling light poured up from behind him, teasing him to stop and take a look at its beauty, maybe even go back. But Arrou must not look back, not for the light, not even for his friend Dr. Bigelow. Arrou had touched his friend Dr. Bigelow and found out what the in-human had done to him. Arrou felt very bad about that. If only he had not shown the abomination mercy back on Coffin Island. He wished, he wished... but wishing was useless! All that was left was doing. Now all Arrou could do was respect Bigelow's wishes—and get out.
The island shuddered under Arrou's legs. Something big had collided with it. BOOM!
The tunnel mouth was getting closer. Tlalok began to struggle on Arrou's back. Arrou wondered if he was strong enough to knock Tlalok out, but, unexpectedly, Tlalok spoke coherently.
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Tlalok could walk. As distance made the null-field radiance weaker and weaker, Tlalok even began to run. The two Khafra broke out of the tunnel at a full gallop.
The surface of the island was bathed in blood-red light, the ground lurching as one of the four small columns of hydrogen fire rammed against it, carving into it and hammering up cyclones of sparks. Flaming debris rained down around Arrou and Tlalok, exploding on impact and setting shriveled vegetation on fire. Arrou and Tlalok bounded down the mound of ghutzu as the island began to spin, grinding around the flaming spear, rotating ever nearer to the central inferno. Red hot hail pelted their backs. Smoke stung their eyes. The heat of the air sawed at their throats and lungs.
Land waves rippled out from the impacting pillar of fire, kicking the ground up unde
r their feet. Tlalok, not yet fully recovered from his encounter with the null-field Radiance, faltered. Arrou nipped at his heels to keep him going. Somehow, running through the rolling hills and valleys, evading scorched, heavy tree trunks that swung at them like giant pendulums, they made it to the shore—but there was no skimmer! Arrou clawed the ground in frustration.
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The island lurched hard. Arrou watched a particularly large land wave ripple across the island. The ground under him and Tlalok was sucked down as it rolled toward them and then they were riding up its steep face and then looking out from high atop its crest.
And there was the skimmer!
Off, clockwise, along the shore, there were Jenette and the Guards, desperately waving heat-shield blankets to attract attention. Arrou realized he had somehow become disoriented in the run down from the tunnel. The skimmer was where it was supposed to be—and so was Jenette. With a howl of relief, Arrou took a fix on the vehicle and lead Tlalok diagonally through the hills and troughs of land waves. In very little time they were in the right location. The skimmer was floating a dozen yards off shore to keep from being battered to pieces by the island's pistoning shoreline. Liberty gunned the skimmer's turbine engine, circling the craft closer to the two Khafra. Arrou and Tlalok sprang onto its near wing. Their claws skittered on the wet surface. Skutch and Grubb reached out and heaved Tlalok inside. Arrou half leapt, half crashed into the inner hull beside them.