The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books

by John Thornton

  “It jumped us from up there,” Vesna stated. “But I must tend to your back. I can see better now.”

  “I will watch for the monster,” Khin said and quickly undid his ruined shirt. He also opened a pouch on his belt and grabbed out a small blue package.

  Vesna was using Khin’s shirt as a compress on the long gashes which had been raked down his back.

  “These wounds are about twenty-five centimeters long, but not as deep as I fear at first. What are you doing?” Vesna asked as she pressed the crudely folded shirt onto the wounds.

  “Jerome gave me these things. I have three of them. He called them trauma gel and said they would help heal stuff if I got hurt.” Khin ripped one package open and then swallowed everything inside it. “It is like his food, no taste.”

  “Are you to eat it or put it on the wound?”

  Khin giggled a bit. “I do not remember what he said for sure. It was something from his home place. Can it hurt to eat?”

  “Trauma gel is safe for internal and external uses,” Sandie stated.

  “That makes sense, knowing Jerome and Cammarry.” Under the pressure of the compresses and the influence of the trauma gel Khin had ingested, the bleeding soon stopped. During that time, Vesna’s eyes also cleared so she could see nearly as well as she did normally. Yet, though they watched intently, there was no further sign of the thing that had attacked them in the hexagonal corridor.

  “My Khin, was that what took the children?” Vesna asked as she unfolded the shirt. Its caked and drying blood made opening and unfolding it difficult.

  “That was a monster, that is certain. We must find its lair, and burn out every hair,” Khin replied. “The children may still be alive. My mother once said, ‘Lost children may be alive, even up to day number five.’”

  “Was she speaking about monsters or just being lost?” Vesna asked.

  “Well, old tales and rumors speak about children being gone for five days, but I am not sure why they were gone. Mostly it seems that unless they are found before five days, they die. My Vesna, that is really the first monster I have seen,” Khin laughed a bit and flexed his back muscles. The trauma gel was helping, but he was very sore, and the injury limited his range of motion.

  “Where do we go from here?” Vesna asked.

  “I think I can follow the monster by its smell,” Khin said and took some deep sniffs. “It has a smell unlike anything I have smelled before. I think we must follow this monster, and maybe find the children. Children or not, this monster must die. But we must find it, kill it, and burn down its lair. Burn out every hair.”

  “My Khin, together we can do this. Did the monster smell like the children?” Vesna asked. “Has it already killed them? It nearly killed you.”

  “I do not know. It is odd. The smell is different. That was part of its strangeness. It smelled like lots of things, and like nothing I have smelled before,” Khin replied. He then kissed Vesna on the cheek. “Many times, you have saved me. Thank you. Come on, we must track it down.”

  Khin stuffed his bloodied shirt into a pouch and pulled out and reshuffled his other equipment.

  Vesna reloaded her revolver.

  Together, they walked down the hexagonal corridor. The broken expanded metal panels which comprised the upper sections of the walls allowed for many spaces where things could climb in and get between the ducts, pipes, and other utilities. So, they moved cautiously.

  As they progressed, the illumination got less and less, and fewer and fewer of the ceiling fixtures were working. There was little sign of growth medium, or of the water which should be flowing down the walls.

  Khin was in the lead, and Vesna was close behind and they were watching every nook and cranny on both sides of the corridor. As they walked, a dull tapping sound started up. It echoed from somewhere ahead of them.

  “Khin?” Vesna whispered. “Is that the monster?”

  Khin turned around and got very close to her and there was no laughing at all. “I am not sure. I can still smell it, but there are more chemical kinds of smells now. It is harder to tell where it went.”

  “How big was it?” Vesna asked.

  Sandie responded via the private channel for both of the com-links. “I conjecture the attacker was right at two meters tall. That is not a precise measurement because I only got a glimpse of it. I have thoroughly reviewed the information I have, as well as the database in the lattice of compeers. The attacker does not fit the profile of any known animal species.”

  Vesna asked, “A Crock?”

  “Very unlikely,” Sandie replied. “The atmosphere here is not conducive to Zalian life forms, nor is there a way one could have come onto the needle ship. It traveled with a form of bipedalism, and appears to be predatory. Ursidae, smutsia gigantea, megatheriidae, gigantopithecus, and homo sapiens, are potentials suspects of this attacker, although none conclusively fit what was observed.”

  “I did not know Sandie the spirit-guide swore like Bigelow does,” Vesna said. “Sandie must be very upset.”

  “Sorry, Vesna, I was listing possible animals which might be related to the beast. To use more common parlance….”

  “Monsters have been around for as long as people,” Khin interjected. “Sandie, you must let us hunt in the quiet. Too many words spoil the hunt. I am glad you warned me, but I need to focus.” He took some deep sniffs, and they continued to walk onward. “Only speak warnings, not stories.”

  The tapping grew louder, and the lights got dimmer.

  Suddenly, a plume of steam shot out from somewhere just ahead of them. It jetted down from the slotted parts of the upper side wall, and blanketed the area. Both Vesna and Khin dropped into a crouch and peered into the steam. The noise of the steam obscured the sounds of the tapping.

  “Is there movement?” Vesna asked as she peered down the barrel of her revolver. “In that steam? Is it the steam rolling or something behind it?”

  Khin held up his hand and Vesna grew quiet. He scrutinized everything in front of him as his eyes made out shapes, and shadows, and objects in the steam.

  “Ya!” Khin yelled and rushed forward. His spear arm was pulled back.

  Vesna darted after him, but could not see what he was attacking, so she refrained from firing. Although her instincts told her to just shoot into the steam and kill whatever was there, hoping it was the monster.

  Khin threw his short spear, and dove down to the far side of the corridor and the crawled quickly under the plume of steam.

  Thunk!

  Vesna saw where his spear had flown, and there was some indistinct thing crawling along.

  Blam. Blam. Blam.

  Vesna fired into the steam at the thing which was moving.

  With a hiss the steam slowed down and stopped. As it cleared away, Khin began to chuckle. He stood up. “Cubie blue knows what to do!”

  Vesna saw that indeed the thing which had been moving along was a heavily dented blue automacube. Its drive wheels were worn, and it had a gold stripe around its middle. She read, ‘Machine Maintenance’ which was stenciled on the gold stripe. The automacube’s manipulation arm was attached loosely to a pipe in the wall which the machine had been following. The pipe still had a bit of steam pouring forth from a release valve where the automacube’s grippers had hold of it. Vesna saw that her three shots had struck it in a tight group on its side, deeply denting the already beaten-up carriage. Khin’s spear was sticking out from its front drive wheel.

  “A cubie?” Vesna asked. “Down here?”

  “It is not registered as connected to the lattice of compeers,” Sandie replied, but spoke only through the private channel to Vesna. “It appears to be set to do automatic service on the thermo-hydraulic pressure system. If you connect the com-link’s cable into the access port on that engineering automacube, I can perhaps review its logs, assess the damage it has sustained, and reassign it if needed.”

  “My Khin, that is not what attacked us,” Vesna stated. She noted the tapping noise was
gone. “Sandie wants me to connect to that cubie.”

  Khin turned away from the automacube to speak to Vesna.

  “Cubie blue knows what to do,” Khin said. “Connect in, and I will look for the monster. Maybe the cubies knows where it went?”

  Vesna walked over and squatted down. Just as she was squatting down, a terrible growl came from somewhere. She drew out her revolver. Khin grabbed the spear and yanked it from the automacube’s wheel.

  “Khin where is it?”

  “I am looking!”

  With brutal swiftness and speed, one clawed paw slapped down hard on Vesna’s gun hand, knocking the weapon away. Another clawed paw wrapped itself around her face in an immensely strong grip. The monster grabbed her from behind, yanking her up, and started to drag her away. Vesna stomped down on its front foot, but to no effect.

  Khin threw the spear, which imbedded itself in the monster’s side, then charged at the monster, his knife in his hand. As he flung himself up and over Vesna, he slashed at the monster’s black shinny eyes which were just above its pointed snout. Its open mouth had rows of sharp, white teeth, and a lolling red tongue. The monster ducked, but kept hold on Vesna’s face. She was trying to refrain from breathing, for the thing’s paw smelled rotten. She rammed her elbow backward and felt it connect with some part of the monster.

  Landing next to the monster who was holding his beloved, Khin drove the sharp blade deep into the monster’s hairy side. It sank up to the hilt, and Khin twisted and twisted as it pulled away. Vesna’s elbow struck it again, and the monster let go of her. It swung its paw backward and smacked Khin away from it. He held onto the knife and it came loose from the monster, black fluids oozing out from the puncture, and staining the blade. He tried to slash it again, but the monster struck him a hard blow against his chest, throwing him backward. The beast then ripped the spear out of its side, and its tail knocked about as the monster spun around.

  Vesna stumbled forward, looking for her revolver, and trying to suck in enough air. The revolver was jammed up against the drive wheels of the automacube. Vesna ducked down to grab it. That movement saved her life, as a set of claws savagely ripped the air where her head had been. A number of strands of Vesna hair were yanked out as they became entangled in the monster’s claws.

  A second swat with claws came as Vesna grabbed the gun and then dove over the automacube. Those claws also missed her. She flipped over and came up with the revolver ready. As she squeezed down on the trigger, Khin stepped into the way, and he swung the knife in a slashing arc right toward the monster’s hairy throat.

  Vesna pulled up her aim, but not in time to avoid discharging the weapon.

  Blam!

  Her bullet struck into the side wall, missing Khin and the monster by only mere inches. Khin’s knife blade had sliced some of the hair from the monster’s throat, but there was no blood. Turning sideways, the monster kicked its heavy feet at Khin. He took a blow to his side and he was knocked over the automacube and fell into Vesna. As they got up to rejoin the fight, the monster was gone.

  “Hurry, we must get it!” Khin called out. He pulled Vesna up and helped her to get around the automacube.

  “Khin, how badly hurt are you?” she asked.

  “Not too bad,” Khin replied, although he was limping and his back was oozing some blood from the wounds he had received. “I hurt that monster, I know I did!”

  Vesna and Khin ran after the monster, with Khin sniffing the air, and looking at the floor. Dark spots were marring the faded off-green color foliage. In the dim light, those spots were hard to see for Vesna, but Khin’s eyes picked them out.

  “It went in there!” Khin pointed to a section of the upper wall where the expanded metal was missing, and a gap was evident between several large pipes. Some strands of dark gray hair were caught on some of the exposed edges of the metal.

  “Wait!” Vesna said, but Khin plowed ahead and leaped up into the gap. Vesna’s heart beat fast as she feared Khin would race on without her.

  A hand came jutting out from that gap. “Come on Vesna. We are in this together. The hunt is on!”

  “You waited for me. Thank you,” Vesna said and grasped his hand. He helped to pull her up, but he flinched a bit as his back muscles and injuries pained him. “My Khin, you are hurt more than you say.”

  “But those children may still be alive. No time to wait. I smelled a girl on that monster,” Khin said and held up his knife. There were some hairs stuck on its hilt. He sniffed at them. “Weird thing. But I do smell a girl.”

  Vesna tapped the top of his shoulder where he had not been hurt. “Then we go as fast as we can. Do not forget your handgun. It might do better than your knife.”

  Khin turned and crawled ahead. Some of the dark liquid which had dribbled from the monster was on the pipes as he crawled through. “Do not touch the monster’s blood. It burns my skin.”

  “Why?” Vesna asked as they stepped and crawled and scooted through the gaps between the pipes, ducts, and wiring.

  “Monster blood does what monster blood does.”

  “But why should blood burn?” Vesna asked.

  “Because I touched the monster’s blood.”

  “No, I mean why does it burn?” Vesna asked, but she was cautious to avoid those dark spots she could see.

  “Monster blood is as monster blood is.” Khin gave a slight chuckle, but there was also an underlying groan of pain in his voice.

  “Maybe you should eat another of those gel things from Jerome?” Vesna suggested. She was squatting on a duct, and gripping pipes with her hands to not fall from the precarious spot. To her it was quite dim, nearly dark, in the spaces where they were moving.

  “When we get out of this land of pipes, then I will give you both trauma gels that I have. You keep them for yourself. I am not hurt bad.”

  Vesna flicked on the light from her com-link. Its beam shone out and made the passage easier to traverse, but the going was difficult. Khin did not complain about the brightness, as even he was having some difficulty getting through. As they threaded their way through the labyrinth of pipes and ducts and conduits, occasionally Khin would stop and sniff at a place, handhold, or flange where a foot could stand.

  “The monster came this way, but it has not been bleeding for a while,” Khin said.

  “Where are we?” Vesna asked quietly as she stepped close to Khin.

  “We are in an in-between place. See how far down the floor is below us? We are nearly at the bottom of the world. Up there,” Khin gestured ahead of them. “Up there, we will get to a large space which is called the Hallway of Forever. I hope the monster lives in here, in this in-between space, but I see nothing like a lair.” He then moved onward, swinging from one foothold to another, and stepping on horizontal pipes which only supported him because they were constructed from permalloy. He was scrupulous to avoid standing on any of the weaker metals. Most of the steels and other metals showed signs of rust and corrosion.

  As they passed toward where Khin had indicated, Vesna’s light shined on the wall. Set into that was an access hatch which was not quite closed all the way. A rim of light shined around it.

  “The monster went in there. I can smell its presence,” Khin said.

  “Wait for me to cover you. Do not open that up without me being there,” Vesna insisted sternly.

  Khin smiled broadly and just nodded. He waited on the small ledge where a compressor motor was located. It was not running, and around that machine there was a small lip on which he could stand. Vesna joined him. She noted a sign which hung on the compressor. It read, “Beware: High Temperature Lines.”

  Vesna anchored herself and drew her revolver. “That door opens away from us here. Khin, let me go first, you are injured.”

  “No. I will go. You have the gun,” Khin answered with a chortle.

  “You have one too,” Vesna barked back. “That monster might attack as soon as the door opens.”

  “I do not think so. In there is th
e Hallway of Forever.”

  Vesna’s face scrunched up on puzzlement. To Khin, his comment made perfect sense, but to Vesna it was just a name and was too obscure. Additionally, she was waiting to get attacked, and did not want to be caught off guard.

  Khin dug about in his pouch and came out with a set of goggles. He placed them over his head, so they hung around his neck and were ready to be put on. “I do not think your eyes will be bothered, maybe, but I did bring two sets, a pair of a pair, huh?” His laugh was hallow. “The Fruit People traded me for these. I did not want to use them here, but I will need them, as might you. First, I will eat some cheese before we go in.” He handed the second pair of goggles to Vesna who followed Khin’s example and placed them around her neck for easy access. Then Khin ate some cheese, and drank some water. “Do you want to eat?”