by Stephen Cole
‘Come on then, fellas,’ he said briskly, marching up to Roba with a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘You’ve got a spare gun there, ain’t ya? Lend us it, will you?’
Roba looked down at him, sneering. ‘You’re seriously asking me to lend you my weapon?’
Ben pulled himself up to his full height, and even then he was barely level with Roba’s shoulder. ‘All right, give us it, then.’
Roba slowly pulled the chunky pistol from its holster and levelled it at Ben’s chest. ‘To mess with me,’ he said quietly,
‘you’re either stupid, or else you’ve got some guts.’
‘Don’t reckon I’m the brightest in the class,’ Ben said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘But I reckon I got plenty of guts.’ He put his hand round the gun barrel and gently pushed it aside a fraction. ‘And if it’s the same to you, I’d like them to stay inside my skin. All right?’
Roba’s eyes narrowed, but soon his teeth bared in a wolf-like grin. He opened his palm and allowed Ben to take the gun with sweaty fingers.
‘Maybe we could use a man your size around,’ Roba told him, slapping down the slab of his hand on Ben’s shoulder.
‘You can watch my ankles. Let me know if anything’s coming to chew ‘em. OK?’
‘You got a deal, mate.’
Creben and Frog followed Joiks into the tunnel, weapons trained dead ahead of them.
‘Count ten,’ Haunt instructed them. ‘Then move in after them.’
‘I’ll go in first,’ Tovel volunteered. ‘Ben, you follow me. Then Roba.’
Ben nodded, and looked over his shoulder at Polly down the dim passage. She was watching him forlornly, peeping over Shade’s shoulder. He winked at her, but wasn’t sure if she’d see. The Doctor, standing by Shel about ten feet away, inclined his head. His chest was puffed up, as if with pride.
His fingers flexing around the unfamiliar contours of the gun handle, Ben strode after Tovel into the dark, dripping mouth of the tunnel.
* * *
VI Polly found the darkness almost overpowering. The troopers’
torchlight seemed swallowed by it. Occasionally she glimpsed movement in it, a faint flare on a rifle butt, a moving leg or swinging arm. Her imagination filled in the gaps, conjured monsters out of the dark for her to thread her way through.
The ground was wet and slippery with scree. She clung on to Shade’s arm for support.
‘The path splits into three.’ Creben sounded as casual as always, even here.
‘Me and Denni never got this far,’ said Joiks.
‘Test your wrist-comms,’ Haunt snapped. ‘I couldn’t reach you and Denni before.’
The squad did as she asked, and everyone seemed satisfied.
‘Evidently some sort of energy-source was interfering with your transmissions,’ said the Doctor. ‘The drives, powering up, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps.’ Haunt didn’t sound interested. ‘Joiks, Creben, Frog, push on to the left. ‘Tovel, your group follow them. We’ll take the middle. Shade the right.’
Polly was impressed by her swift decision making, until it dawned on her that since no one knew where they were going, it hardly mattered who went where.
Except that anything could be waiting, silently, down one of these dark passages.
Footsteps crunched off into the darkness.
‘Here we go then,’ said Shade. He didn’t sound much happier about it than Polly did, and she wasn’t sure whether to feel consoled or more frightened still.
Polly stifled a cry as something pushed past her into the tunnel. It was Lindey.
‘I’ll go in first, Shadow. I don’t like the thought of you watching out for me.’ She paused, squinted back into the spotlight of Shade’s torch beam. ‘Not after what you did.’
Still holding on to Shade’s sleeve, Polly felt the man start to tremble. From the shaky hiss of his breathing, it wasn’t with anger, but with fear.
He pulled his arm away from her, brusquely. Then he followed Lindey into the tunnel.
‘What was all that about?’ Polly muttered to herself. As she went to follow them, the toe of her boot knocked against something. She cried out.
Shade spun round, gun raised. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. Shine your light here,’ she whispered, tapping the protruding object with her toe.
It was a little pile of rocks.
‘That’s mine!’ Polly breathed. ‘My marker. I must’ve come this way.’ She frowned. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t so dark before.’
She peered at the little heap of rocks. Beside it was one much larger. ‘Here. There’s been some sort of subsidence, the tunnel I went through has been sealed off.’ She paused. ‘I think that weird place with the blue light and the countdown is on the other side of this rockfall.’
‘Come on,’ Shade said. He sounded preoccupied. ‘I mustn’t let Lindey get too far ahead.’
Polly shrugged but gave no argument. Their crunching footsteps set a mournful tempo as they set off after her.
‘Have you known her long?’ Polly asked tentatively.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Shade said with a sideways glance.
‘Nothing. I just wondered. With you being a team and all.’
‘Well, then, no. I haven’t known her long. I haven’t known a lot of this crowd long. We’re soldiers. What’s to know? We fight till one day we die.’
When Lindey s scream tore through the blackness Polly thought her heart would give out.
There was movement in the dark. Now Shade gripped her arm, as if not wanting her to run away and leave him.
There was a heavy rushing noise, a pressure in her ears, and Polly’s perceptions seemed to skew. She glimpsed something in Shade’s torch beam: some grotesque, squat little figure, then a pale face falling away into the darkness like a stone down a well as Lindey, still screaming, was snatched away at unnatural, frightening speed.
Chapter Six
By the Pricking of my Thumbs
I
‘We’ve got to help her!’ Polly shouted, Lindey’s screams still ringing in her ears.
Shade raised his wrist to his lips. For a few moments he just breathed, deeply and shakily, before speaking. ‘Marshal Haunt. Have lost Lindey.’
There was nothing but static.
‘Oh no,’ murmured Polly.
‘Marshal Haunt,’ Shade repeated. ‘Respond.’
‘Maybe...’ Polly swallowed nervously. ‘Maybe whatever it was got Haunt too.’
The static stopped, replaced by the heavy silence of the tunnel.
‘Shade?’ Haunt’s voice from the communicator made them both jump.
‘Marshal, it’s Lindey. Dragged off, it was so fast…’
‘Get after her,’ Haunt snapped. ‘I’m on my way. Out.’
‘Come on,’ Shade said. He took Polly’s arm and they ran on together. The torch beam played crazily over the dark and jagged surface. The rock walls were moth-eaten with entrances to other tunnels, gaping open like mouths ready to suck them both inside.
There was a sudden scraping, rattling noise, and Shade ducked down. Polly gave a short shriek of alarm, but a moment later Shade was up again. ‘It’s all right. I dropped my palmscreen. Let’s go.’
They didn’t have much further to run before the darkness suddenly gave way to a thick, porridgey light. She and Shade had emerged into a vast vaulted chamber. It had five walls, stacked high with the familiar dark slates, though one was partially obscured by another of the extraordinary glass tapestries. The ceiling was heavy with the luminous weed. It hung down in sticky strands, and here and there on the smooth stone floor it lay in glowing heaps that were clustered with the pale insects. Five tall stone columns reached up from the stone-paved floor like huge candles, each one crowned with a pair of massive stone sculptures. Eerily lit from above, they reminded Polly of Renaissance cherubs grown fat and gone to seed. It must’ve been a statue of some kind she glimpsed back in the tunnel.
The chamber
was otherwise empty and silent, save for the ghostly chiming of the tapestry fragments, disturbed as if by a breeze. There was no sign of Lindey.
Footsteps behind them made Polly jump. She saw Haunt tearing towards them, rifle raised, staring wildly around.
‘Where is she?’ Haunt demanded of Shade.
Shade shook his head but said nothing.
Haunt glared at Polly. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘There was no time,’ Polly murmured. ‘It all happened so fast.’
‘Too fast,’ Shade agreed. ‘She was just... taken.’
‘Taken by what, for God’s sake? By a droid? By the hand?’
Haunt’s voice rose a notch, and she slapped a palm angrily against Polly’s shoulder. ‘By the colour of this stupid spacesuit?’
‘There was nothing Shade could have done,’ Polly insisted.
Haunt grabbed hold of Polly’s chin and leaned in close. Her voice was low and threatening. ‘Listen to me. You do not speak for any of my squad. Never.’ Her eyes were dark, unblinking. ‘You follow me?’
Polly nodded mutely. Shade just looked on, apparently unmoved.
‘What is happening here?’
Polly could have cried with relief as the Doctor’s voice rang out imperiously around the chamber. Haunt widened her eyes in one more silent warning, then let Polly go.
‘There’s no sign of Lindey,’ Haunt snapped. Polly saw she was ignoring the Doctor and talking to Shel, who stood behind him. ‘Could whatever took her have got past you?’
‘No, Marshal,’ Shel answered. ‘We saw nothing.’
‘These tunnels interconnect,’ the Doctor added. ‘We crossed from ours to join yours. I imagine all the passages are joined, it’s quite a labyrinth.’ He nodded decisively.
‘Terrific. So Lindey has vanished, just like Denni. You saw nothing. Shade did nothing.’
‘Again,’ Polly heard Shade whisper. He absently itched one of the black ridges in his face, and quickly screwed up his eyes as if in pain.
As she wondered whether or not to place a consoling hand on his shoulder, she noticed his palmscreen fastened securely to his chunky belt.
And, peeping from his jumpsuit’s hip pocket, the shiny corner of an identical computer.
‘Are you all right, my dear?’ the Doctor had crossed, as quiet as a cat, to join her. Polly steered him discreetly over to one of the stone pillars.
‘Doctor,’ Polly whispered urgently. ‘I think Shade has got Lindey’s palm computer thing. She must’ve dropped it when she was...’ Her voice dried up, and she swallowed. ‘I think he found it in the tunnel and pretended it was his.’
The Doctor frowned. ‘Are you sure, child?’
She nodded. ‘So why hasn’t he told Haunt?’
‘Why indeed?’ muttered the Doctor. ‘I wonder...’
‘And when I first met him... When I was running from whatever that thing was that chased me away from the blue place...’ She looked wide-eyed at the Doctor. ‘It was Shade who brought the roof down on us, stopped me leading anyone there to see for themselves.’
‘You must tell me all that happened, Polly.’
She gladly obliged. It felt good to be able to tell the outlandish tale just as it happened and know that she was believed without question, taken deadly seriously. The Doctor always did that; made you the centre of his world whenever he looked at you.
When she’d finished, the Doctor simply nodded. ‘It sounds to me as if you stumbled upon a power source of some kind.
Perhaps the very core of this subterranean citadel.’ He nodded again with satisfaction at this summation.
‘And someone else had found it too,’ Polly said, remembering the figure she’d seen through the blue haze.
‘Oh, this is a terrible place!’ She scratched the back of her neck. ‘There’s something here with us, I’m sure of it.
Something... evil. Watching us all the time.’
The Doctor patted her absently on the shoulder. ‘We have eyes too,’ he said, ‘and we must use them well.’
Around her feet the white fleas hopped mindlessly. High above, the cherubim balanced precariously as if frozen in the midst of some joyful dance.
II
Ben felt like piggy in the middle, stuck between Tovel and Roba. The two men joked to keep their spirits up, but the conversation went right over Ben’s head. A good foot shorter than either of them, perhaps it was no surprise, he mused ruefully.
Suddenly the laughter stopped dead. Ben heard a scraping sound ahead of him, then silence.
There was a sound like a generator charging up, and then confused movement about him in the dark as Tovel pushed past to join Roba.
‘Keep down, Ben,’ Roba shouted. ‘Kill-Droid approaching.’
A red glow was creeping round the corner of the tunnel.
Then it was lost in the flare of laser fire from the two soldiers.
Ben shielded his face as splinters of rock showered over him, smelt chemical smoke from the glowing barrels of the guns. A large stone fell from the ceiling and struck his leg.
‘Go easy!’ Ben shouted. ‘You’ll bring the roof down on us!’
The gunfire stopped, as if they’d actually listened to him.
The air was thick with dust. For a moment, all Ben could hear was Tovel and Roba’s ragged breathing.
‘We got it,’ Tovel said. ‘Sharp shooting, marksman.’
Roba coughed. ‘You sure we got it?’
‘We must’ve got it.’
Cautiously they advanced on the bend in the tunnel.
A rush of crimson coloured the walls. Something slammed into the two men, knocking them back.
In the red haze Ben could see a nightmare figure rounding the corner. It was huge, filling the tunnel. Its head was a great glass cylinder, the source of the infernal glow. Its body was the size of a chest freezer, chrome and gleaming, bobbing about on countless spidery limbs that seemed fashioned from tensile steel.
The machine whipped out a metal tentacle that ended in a cruel spike, one that looked easily big enough to skewer two heads in one go. Roba brought up his gun but the robot’s spike hooked it from his grip. With a flick, the gun clattered out of reach behind the thing.
Ben scrambled to his feet.
‘Here!’ Tovel shouted, and hurled his own rifle Ben’s way.
Before he could grab it, the robot flung out another tentacle and caught the gun like it weighed nothing.
Ben scooped his own gun from the tunnel floor and fired it, aiming for the thing’s head. There was a noise like bullets firing and a lacklustre light flashed out from the gun’s tip, but he felt no recoil and the effect on the robot was disappointing to say the least. Ben thought the droid wasn’t even going to notice his attack, but finally its head rotated slowly round to face him.
‘That thing won’t scratch a Kay-Dee,’ Tovel gasped.
‘We must’ve damaged it,’ said Roba. ‘Or else why ain’t it firing no more?’
The robot now used Roba’s rifle as a club. Ben dived to the floor as the weapon whooshed over his head and smashed into the wall. Tovel and Roba were using the distraction to try and scramble out of the Kill-Droid’s way, falling over each other in the enclosed, suffocating space, choking on smoke and dust. When the thing advanced on them, Ben found himself directly in its way.
Desperately he wormed through the robot’s tangle of sinewy legs. His skin felt scorched by the fierce heat radiating from the machine’s gleaming body. He cried out as something hooked on his ankle and the flesh started to tear. But with his arms at full stretch, he felt the cold, solid bulk of Tovel’s rifle. Grabbing it, he jammed its barrel up what he hoped was the part of the Kill-Droid where the sun don’t shine.
This time when he fired, the results were a lot more spectacular.
Like a firework going off in a jam jar, the monster’s head exploded. A fog of red smoke escaped the shattered glass.
Sparks shot out of the blackening neck. The twisting limbs stiffened and th
en buckled beneath the weight of the great chrome coffin above. Ben tried to work his way clear of the bulk as it teetered and rocked alarmingly above him, but something was still hooked in his left ankle, anchoring the thing to him.
‘Don’t let it fall on me, for God’s sake!’ Ben gasped. ‘I’ll be flattened!’
In the sputtering light of the sparks, Ben saw his own terrified reflection staring him out from the robot’s gleaming back. His distorted features grew closer, clearer, as the dead weight of the thing finally fell to crush him.
Inches from his face its fall was halted.
‘Get yourself free quickly,’ Ben heard Tovel gasp. ‘This thing weighs a tonne.’
Ben felt for the hook in his ankle and yanked it out.
Raising himself on his elbows, biting his tongue to stop himself whimpering with the pain, he worked his way backwards a few feet along the tunnel.
‘All right, I’m clear!’ he yelled, but his cry was drowned out by the clang and clatter of the Kill-Droid as it smashed heavily into the ground, inches from his feet.
Ben breathed a long, long sigh of relief. ‘Thanks, fellas.’
‘Thanks yourself,’ Tovel replied, and Roba nodded. Despite the pain in his ankle, Ben felt a giddying rush of triumph.
He’d sorted the War Machine’s big brother, and earned his place in the barracks. Having the friendship of this pair should make his stay here, and that of Polly and the Doctor, a little easier.
Roba studied the Kill-Droid’s inert body. ‘This thing’s loaded with different weapons, but the charges are all still full. Not a shot fired. Why didn’t it use them?’
‘It probably heard me telling you the whole roof would come crashing down,’ Ben called, gingerly feeling round his injured ankle. It didn’t feel too bad now. It just itched like hell.
‘You reckon this thing cares about a tonne of rubble on its head?’
Tovel clearly didn’t think so. No, it must be the one me and Shade met before. We must’ve hit it.’
‘Whatever,’ Roba announced, raising his wrist to his mouth. ‘Looks like we’ve got a hell of a trophy to take back to Haunt.’