The Ninth Circle: A Novel of the U.S.S. Merrimack

by R. M. Meluch

  No. Please no. He prayed to divine powers he didn’t believe in.

  He put out a trembling hand.

  The body stirred. Glenn rolled onto her back. Her eyes opened, focused on Patrick’s face above her, then shifted focus over Patrick’s shoulder where Ram Singh leaned in. She seemed to realize what was happening here. “Ram.” Her voice came out gravelly from sleep. “You got them?”

  Ram Singh shook his head. “Where are they? The pirates?”

  Glenn’s head turned to her side, to the flat spot on the blanket next to her. “I don’t know. Nox was right here. That was—” She checked her chron. “Two hours ago.”

  Patrick saw the pattern in the blanket where someone had been lying next to Glenn.

  “He beached me?” said Glenn. She sounded strangely offended. “I thought I had him.” She rolled up. Stood up. Took a dizzy step. Put a hand out to Patrick for balance. “I think I’ve been dosed. He must have seen through me.”

  “Did you tip him off?” Patrick heard himself say.

  Glenn scowled surprise. “And who was supposed to tip me off? Oh. My. Head.” She crouched down before she could fall over.

  One of Ram’s men pointed over at the spotted ground. “Whose blood is that?”

  “I hope it’s the dog,” said Patrick. “Where’s the dog?”

  The expedition members came out of their tents as the pirate hunters took names and searched the grounds. Ram’s men broke the tape seals over the ships and searched inside. They were fairly certain the pirates were gone. That didn’t stop the search.

  “The pirates must have run away when Windward Isles showed up,” said Patrick.

  “But who told them Windward Isles was here?” Ram said.

  “Their Xerxes has to be keeping watch of who is in orbit,” said Glenn.

  “If that were the case,” said Ram, “then why did they not run when Gladiator arrived?”

  Patrick pulled back in surprise. “Gladiator is here?”

  “Gladiator arrived hours ahead of Windward,” said Ram.

  Glenn reached up her hand for Patrick to help her stand up again. She told Ram, “Those pirates ran under Merrimack’s guns to get down here in the first place. They’re not afraid of anyone.”

  That left the questions: Why did the pirates brave the guns of Merrimack to come to Zoe in the first place? And why did they run away now?

  A shout sounded from the camp perimeter with the alarmed cocking of a lot of guns: “Who goes there!”

  It turned out to be a squad of U.S. Fleet Marines approaching the camp from the northwest.

  They were old friends.

  Ram’s men hailed Colonel TR Steele, “Adamas!”

  Steele glowered.

  Ram stepped forward smiling broadly. “Adamas, I know you are Superman, but how did you get here!”

  The Marines had covered a lot of ground in inhuman time.

  “We caught a ride on some—” Steele stopped, fishing for the right term.

  “Dinosaurs,” Dak supplied.

  “Big animals,” said Steele.

  The camp physician, Dr. Cecil, set off on a tangential rant about the Marines not wearing protection.

  “Calm down, Cecil,” said Patrick. “They’re equipped with personal fields.”

  “They—?” Cecil looked confused, then aghast. “I don’t give a damn about your Marines! What is protecting the native ecosystem from your infested Marines?”

  “Hey! I am not infested,” said Kerry Blue.

  Cecil threw up his hands. “But who am I talking to? You dared provoke the pirates while they held us hostage. Get out of here!”

  “Geez, Cecil, you sound just like Izzy Benet,” Patrick said. “We don’t need two Izzies. Nobody needs two Izzies.”

  “Where is Izzy?” said Cecil. “Did the pirates take him?”

  Patrick looked up to the hut roofs, which were festooned with he didn’t even want to imagine what. The first glimmer of predawn was showing the color. He spoke unsteadily, “Oh, I think he might be around here.”

  “Numa, where are your pirates?”

  Numa’s expression on the video com was impenetrable rock. He told Captain Carmel, “Caesar does not deal with pirates.”

  “You have no idea, have you?” Calli said. “I am talking about the Roman recruits whom Rome disenfranchised before they hijacked the Xerxes.”

  “We are somewhat familiar with the hijack report. It was not a Roman ID that the hijacker flashed at the Italian consulate,” Numa said smoothly.

  It had been a United States ID.

  “Perhaps if you had advised us, Captain Carmel, you would not now be in the position of misplacing your pirates. We can attempt to capture them, if you will share information with us.”

  “No. Actually, I’ll find them myself,” said Calli. She cut the connection.

  The pirates were back in the vacuum. There would be no finding them.

  “Captain,” said Dingo Ryan. “We’re assuming the Xerxes has left the planet. But no one saw them go.”

  “No one would,” said Calli.

  “The pirates left the expedition camp on foot within the last two hours,” said Commander Ryan. “For all we know the Xerxes is still on the ground. The pirates may still be down here.”

  Calli turned to Tactical. “Mister Vincent. Pirates!”

  “Sir,” said Marcander Vincent. “The Xerc was designed to protect heads of state. If that ship don’t want to be found, we’re not going to find it.”

  “Yes, we will. We have a place to start, and the pirates left camp on foot. They can’t be far.”

  “But their personal fields have scatter tech. They are sensor-invisible. You can’t even see them with the human eye.”

  “We have the beds they slept in downstairs, and I have dogs.”

  The ships’ dogs—Nose the bloodhound, Rommel the shepherd, and Godzilla the rat terrier—arrived at the LEN camp with displacement thundercracks along with fresh Marines from Green Squad and Silver Horses for the Marines to ride after the dogs.

  The handler let the dogs sniff the pirates’ beds and Nox’s place on the blanket, then turned them loose.

  The dogs picked up a scent immediately and ran with it. Jose Maria’s Doberman, Inga, took off from her master’s side at a joyful run to catch up with her old shipmates.

  Patrick pointed after Inga. He warned, angry, “That dog is a killer! She murdered an ambassador!”

  Ram Singh knew. He had been there.

  “Then it is a good thing they are hunting pirates and not ambassadors,” said Ram.

  The ambassador had been seaweed, and possibly already dead at the time, but Inga was not supposed to chew on it. She’d lost her commission for that.

  Dogs could run twice as fast as a man. The Marines of Green Squad rode their Silver Horses after the baying Nose.

  Calli had an ear to the beam when Flight Leader Bjorn Kim of Green Squad called in. She heard Colonel Steele bark over the com, “Report!”

  The whining and barking dogs were audible in the background.

  Flight Leader Kim said, “We found where the Xerxes was, sir.”

  Was. The word sat inside Calli in a lump. Was meant it wasn’t there anymore.

  “They’re gone?” Steele demanded.

  “Yes, sir,” said Kim.

  Calli got on the com, “Flight Leader. This is Merrimack. Are you sure?”

  “Sir!” said Kim. “Yes, sir. We’re sure it was here, and we’re sure it’s gone now. There’s flattened grass, residue, some well-aged vomit, the imprint of trademark landing gear, and . . .”

  Calli waited for it. She heard the Flight Leader’s reluctant cough.

  Kim plowed ahead, “And a bottle of rum.”

  33

  THE BLANKET ON WHICH GLENN had lain when Patrick found her was still there—still with the rumpled imprints of two reclining bodies. Patrick asked his wife, his voice forced casual, “What were you doing out here? You and Nox.”

  “We were makin
g up constellations.”

  Patrick’s voice hitched. “You were . . .?”

  “Picking out star patterns and giving them names,” said Glenn.

  “Oh.” Of all things he imagined, he hadn’t expected that answer. He could only blurt, “Why?”

  “No one on this planet has made up constellations. The foxes aren’t going to do it. We thought they needed naming.”

  Those words fell like a rusty machete. “We did?”

  Glenn closed her eyes, gave a weary sigh. “I had orders to hold him here.”

  “How hard did you try?” Patrick asked. Heard himself sounding like a jealous oaf. So I’m a jealous oaf. I’m allowed.

  “Not hard enough,” said Glenn. “Or too hard. In hindsight, I think he saw right through me from the beginning.”

  “If he saw through you, why didn’t he hurt you?” Patrick couldn’t bring himself to say the word kill next to the word you.

  Glenn was at a loss. “I don’t really know. Maybe he knew I had orders and respected that. Maybe he didn’t see my loyalty to my country as a personal betrayal? I can’t answer for him because I don’t know how his mind works. I’m not in his head. I am so glad I’m not in his head.”

  A murderer who wears bones, quotes Kipling, and names the stars.

  The expedition members collected Director Benet’s remains together, then cleaned off the rooftops. They washed the leopard spots off the hut walls and shoveled the marks off the ground.

  Dr. Cecil, now acting expedition director, ordered Captain Carmel to recall her Marines and take her battleship out of the star system.

  Calli tried to tell him that the world was under alien invasion, so she had jurisdiction here. She knew Numa Pompeii would challenge her, but that was a separate battle.

  Cecil told her over the com, “How many times must you people be told? We are not under attack. The visitors came here with no weapons except their own nails!” He would not call them clokes. He knew what the word meant.

  “They came with no weapons other than lethal projectiles,” Calli sent back. “Is that what you just told me?”

  “They are a Class Nine Intelligence,” Cecil sent. “They travel between stars. They aren’t savages.”

  “They may not have been savages when their ancestors left home, but they are clearly savage now. And hostile.”

  Cecil shut off his com.

  Dr. Rose’s voice carried across the camp. “Where’s the goat?” He came walking between ships, holding Anabelle’s tether. “Anabelle? Anabelle?”

  “She escaped?” someone asked. Maybe Sandy Minyas.

  “Not by herself. Not unless she has opposable thumbs.” Aaron Rose opened and shut the clasp.

  The expedition members collected around the goat’s stake. They found tripodal tracks and a hole.

  The Marines and Ram Singh’s men stayed back, fanned out.

  Colonel Steele roared at Dr. Cecil, “Get this damned dome off my roof!” and he shouted into his com, “Merrimack, Merrimack, Merrimack. This is Colonel Steele. We need a sounding at this location.”

  The camp geologist said, affronted, “I assure you this camp was sited on a solid foundation.”

  “Seven years ago,” said Glenn.

  Steele bellowed at all the xenos clustering around the hole. “Spread out!”

  Jose Maria standing at a distance from the group called to his dog, “Inga, come!”

  As the stake and the ground around it caved in.

  Men, women, and the dog sank into a black nest of flailing multijointed arms and legs.

  On solid ground, Steele barked at the nearest Marine, Asante Addai. “Him.” Steele jabbed a forefinger at Dr. Cecil. “Dome.”

  “Sir!” Asante seized Dr. Cecil and hauled him in a running march to deactivate the dome over the camp that shielded them from aid from Merrimack.

  The sinkhole was taking on shape. It looked to be six feet deep—eight feet in places—like a dirt swimming pool filled with gyrating people and alien stick figures. And it was screaming.

  The Marines advanced toward the hole two by two—one man forward, one following behind—in case the edge gave way. The forward Marines seized the reaching arms of any people who made it to the sinkhole’s wall and pulled them out. Clokes clung onto them.

  “Swords!” Steele bellowed.

  The Marines slashed down the clokes that came near the edge.

  Not like gorgons. These things had the sense to retreat—pulling themselves and their victims away from the swords. And oh, no, they are not retreating into that tunnel!

  Steele sent Marines to cut off that escape hole.

  Kerry Blue jumped down into the mess of it.

  Dimly aware no cloke fingernails were bouncing off her personal field. Were they saving their ammo?

  Hacking at black things. Tough to get a clean slice, the clokes were intermingled with flailing people. People in agony just won’t hold still.

  Slash down two clokes. Hold up while Twitch grabs a human and drags him clear.

  Kerry cut down a cloke through its spongy middle. Kicked its pieces behind her. Advanced one step. Boot snagged on a stick. Cloke arm. She was about to kick it away. It was too thick. Bloody. Had flesh on it. Five fingers.

  Kerry Blue screeched, “CARLY!”

  There was the rest of Carly over there.

  Twitch was suddenly there. Seized Carly. Carly was all floppy. Twitch holding Carly’s bleeding stump closed in one big hand, ran back for the dirt wall. Passed Carly up to the Yurg. Climbed up after her.

  “Twitch!” Kerry cried from the sinkhole.

  He turned. She threw Carly’s arm up to him.

  About face. Sword ready.

  All those Slash/Don’t Slash drills come right back. Like falling off a bike.

  On the left. Don’t slash. Shove that civilian behind her toward the wall. Slash that and that and that. Jump out of the way of that hook thing zipping out of cloke’s shoulder hole on a black string. Slash the string. Movement left and right. Friend left. Foe right. Hack the right one down.

  Black mass rocketing past her left. Don’t slash. That’s Don Cordillera’s dog.

  Big dead guy in front of her. Might not stay dead if she could get him out in time. Need more muscle here. “Rhino!”

  “Got him!” Rhino came in low on the left. “Cover me, Blue.”

  Rhino grabbed the dead guy, ankle and a wrist. Dragged him out of the melee. Kerry thrust up at a cloke jumping at Rhino’s head.

  A slight constriction tugged at her thigh. Kerry hardly felt it till her leg stopped working.

  Saw a spurt of bright red blood. Someone had popped an artery. Someone was really screwed. Looked around for who.

  Self jumping clear out of her body. Those slo-mo sensations that can’t be real. A wire tightened around her thigh. Cut to the bone.

  No blood in her head. The world closing into a tunnel. Ground smacking her in the cheek. A gray haze of boots and alien toes.

  Someone shouting in the closing darkness, “Go displacement! Go displacement!”

  Roger that.

  Over and out.

  Knew before she opened her eyes that she was back on the Mack. Her body didn’t feel as heavy as it did on world. And she could smell that pink medical goo they used to glue people back together. She was in the ship’s hospital.

  She flexed her legs. Both of them. Hoo ra.

  She sat up, and ho mo, there were a lot of people in here. Mo Shah’s river was full.

  She relaxed a little when realized the wounded weren’t all grunts. The two guys in the Lazarus tubes were civilians. She’d have to ask them what God looked like. She only ever got as far as the white light.

  The Roman battle barge up here really coulda stepped up and taken those guys to their hospital. Lazarus tubes were all right, but no one could raise the dead like Rome.

  Kerry turned around. No Thomas. That was either really good or really really bad. “Where’s the Old Man?”

  “On duty, chic
a linda.”

  That was Carly. Count her arms. Two. Check.

  “Anyone know where the clokes got the piano wire?” Taher called from his cot. Pink medical gel around his neck.

  “Wasn’t piano wire,” said one of the civilians. “It was superfine filament. They must have stolen it from our camp. What I want to know is how they used it without cutting their own fingers off.”

  That silenced the room.

  Kerry Blue got up and asked Mo Shah to clear her for duty.

  Merrimack’s Medical Officer told Lieutenant Glenn Hamilton upon her return to ship, “You are being a garden of unclassified flora and fauna.”

  Mohsen Shah had put Glenn through a nano scrub before allowing her to leave the ship’s displacement chamber.

  Clean now, in uniform, Glenn felt herself psychically decompressing. She’d gone island happy down there. She had killed alien intelligences.

  But her party had been attacked and incurred a fatality, so her use of deadly force against aliens was not going to be a blot on her record.

  Still, she knew her force had been excessive.

  Captain Carmel called off the search for the Xerxes and brought the rest of her Marines back on board. Once the Xerxes left the ground, further search was useless. The pirates could have gone anywhere. Literally anywhere. And Captain Carmel was not the police to continue the chase.

  Glenn murmured on the command deck, “You can find anyone if you know where he wants to go.”

  “Do you know where the pirates are going?” the captain asked.

  “No one told me,” Glenn said. But she was afraid she did know. “I think the pirates may be going to strike the clokes’ home world.”

  Commander Ryan turned fully around to stare at her. “Why would they do that?”

  “My reasoning is very thin,” Glenn said. She couldn’t begin to explain the concept of a bigger mammoth. “It’s more a feeling than a reasoning. And I could be completely wrong.”

  A bigger mammoth was needed to stomp out the cloke eggs. All the clokes. All the eggs.

  Calli said, “Mister Ryan. Do we know where the cloke home world is?”