Neverwylde
Page 2
“It’s clear,” Kyber announced. “But we must hurry.”
The ground was mushy, the rocks slippery from the constant mist. Dayall lost his footing and landed heavily on his knees, but pushed away their offers to help him back onto his feet. At one point, Kelen nearly skidded along the narrow trail, but a strong hand grabbed the back of her shirt, preventing her from falling. She gave Sandow a grateful smile and kept going.
When they reached the tower-like pole on this side of the lake, Kyber stopped and declared a brief rest, for which she was grateful. It was Jules who voiced what she’d been thinking as they climbed.
“We’re heading upward. I never realized this was on a grade.”
“It’s not so steep as to be noticeable,” Mellori, the ex-engineer, noted. “But your calves will not thank you afterwards.”
Gaveer pressed water from his pelt, then shook himself. “I’ll be glad when we reach drier quarters.”
The others agreed. “We don’t have much further to go,” Kyber promised. “Come. We need to push on.”
Getting to her feet, Kelen glanced around. Their numbers were short, and a coldness penetrated her chest.
“Guys, where’s Dox?”
The rest checked the area, but the little man was nowhere to be seen. They spread out, but not too far. Moving closer to the drop-off, Kelen cupped her hands around her mouth and called out. “Dox! Where are y—”
Unexpectedly, a fur-covered hand clapped over her mouth. At the same time, Kyber hissed in her ear.
“There. By the pole.”
Everyone froze in place. Several yards down the embankment, where the huge tower was located, they could see the tiny figure moving about the structure. Judging by Dox’s size against the pole, they could estimate how large the generator was.
Kelen squinted. “What’s he doing?”
She felt Kyber moving away, tugging on her shoulder and urging her to back up.
“No sound. No one call out,” the Seneecian ordered in a low voice.
Kelen sensed his dread the same time the gargantuan figure rose from the depths of the lake and turned in their direction.
Chapter 3
Mutiny
“Nobody move!” Sandow whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.
Kelen rolled her eyes up over at where Kyber stood beside her. The others remained frozen like statues as the lake creature wove its massive head from side to side. Water poured off its greenish, glistening skin in small torrents.
“Kyber?” She kept her voice low as she watched the thing ponderously move through the deep lake, sending waves splashing up and over the rocky ledges as it paddled closer toward them. Having the Seneecian protecting her was comforting. She knew he would give his life to save hers, but her fear now was for the odd little man a hundred yards away who was single-mindedly working on whatever the hell it was that had his undivided attention. “Kyber, Dox doesn’t see—”
“I know,” he murmured.
The creature undulated closer to the towers and the huge sheet-like net that was stretched across the lip of the falls. From the depths of its long, serpentine throat came a sound that was part scream, part scraping noise that dragged through Kelen’s brain like a magnet in an electrical field. She winced from the pain, clenching her pants in her fists to keep from clutching her ears and falling to the ground. Behind her, she felt Kyber shudder at the sound, but he remained unmoving, as impossible as it almost was.
At the tower’s base, they saw Dox finally realize the danger he was in as the monster drew closer. The figure stilled.
“We can’t let it get to him,” she insisted in a soft voice. “We have to do something! Distract it! Something!”
She was on the verge of leaping forward to wave her arms and yell at the thing, when Dox’s figure disappeared. Literally disappeared. She gasped. The little man hadn’t moved, yet he was gone. Kelen blinked to clear her vision and stared at the tower, hoping to see him peering around the base, or maybe from a hidden door they hadn’t noticed.
“There’s another one,” Gaveer hissed.
Another one?
Her heart leaped into her throat as a second creature, the same species as the first one, lifted its long neck into the air. But unlike the first monster, it was in the lower lake, on the other side of the grid net.
The two behemoths roared at each other, jabbing with their open maws, but never breaching the net. Never crossing over or beneath it.
“It’s like they’ve learned not to touch it,” Fullgrath murmured.
“Bet it packs one hell of a wallop,” Dayall dryly surmised.
Jules snorted. “I wonder if the beings who built that thing knew they were separating the two.”
“Lower your voices,” Sandow instructed tersely. “Let’s hope we remain as invisible as Dox to them.”
Minutes passed. The two monsters eventually stopped their posturing and slid back under the waters. Kelen felt her muscles melt as the things and the danger vanished.
Fullgrath motioned to the area where they knew the corridors leading to the apartments were located. “We have to keep moving. Those creatures could resurface at any time.”
“Not without Dox,” Kelen argued.
“Don’t worry about Dox,” Jules advised. “I’m sure he’ll catch up with us eventually.”
She glanced over at Mellori, who nodded in agreement. The engineer had worked closely with the genetically modified man. The crew members often teased Mellori, claiming the man had adopted Dox, and often referred to the pair as father and son. Fortunately, Mellori didn’t mind their comments, and Dox was known to be fond of the older man. If anyone knew Dox, it was Mellori.
Nodding her acquiescence, Kelen regathered Dox’s materials and fell in line behind Jules. Again, Kyber took the lead. Once they reached the upper ledges, the going became less strenuous.
Presently, they paused in front of a doorway she didn’t recognize. She gave Kyber a questioning look but he was following Massapa, who was waiting for them at the entrance. The Seneecian opened the mud-splattered wooden door and they filed inside. Once they were all within the narrow corridor, they slumped to the floor to rest. Mellori remained by the partly-opened doorway to keep an eye out for their errant crew member.
“Terran doctor, please explain how you knew movement would give away our presence to the lake monster,” Gaveer asked.
Sandow scratched his head. “It wasn’t so much as knowing as it was an educated guess.”
“A guess?” Jules inquired with a touch of awe.
“Based on rudimentary biology,” Sandow added. “Yes, I know those things out there are nothing like what we’ve ever encountered before, but you have to admit we all wouldn’t have been able to find shelter in time before one or more of us became that thing’s breakfast.”
“Go on, doctor,” Kelen urged.
“I’ve been studying the creatures we’ve met so far, and I think I’ve figured out a few things. Of course, I could be completely wrong on all counts, but did you notice the placement of the lake monster’s eyes?”
“It had eyes?” Fullgrath inquired.
Sandow grinned. “Exactly. Yes, it had eyes. Six of them, but they were very small and located in a semicircle around the top of the head. That made me think that eyesight is secondary to the creature. It can’t pinpoint its prey directly, but uses general movement to detect where its prey may be.”
“Like it’s nearsighted,” Kelen commented.
“Yes. Like it’s very nearsighted.”
“You also made it clear we needed to be as quiet as possible,” Kyber reminded him. “Are you thinking the monster has keener hearing?”
“That I cannot be certain of. But if its eyesight is secondary, it’s very possible its hearing is its strongest sense. I felt it would be in our favor if we went with all options to protect ourselves, until we can glean a better understanding about what’s on this planet and how they survive. Personally, I think hearing is major with them.
I’m also leaning toward smell as their second best, and movement third. Maybe radar. Vibrations. Hell, even heat.” The man shrugged. “Sorry I can’t be more specific at the moment.”
“But it’s a start.” Kelen flashed him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Doc. You saved our butts this time around.”
A rattling outside the door threw them back into defensive mode, until a familiar redheaded figure filled the crack in the opening. Mellori softly growled and reached out to pull the little man inside, closing the entrance behind him.
“What in hell were you doing by the tower?” the engineer demanded hotly. Kelen could tell he wasn’t as angry as he was upset by Dox’s actions.
Dox made a sorrowful face. “Sorry. Needed to charge it.”
“Charge it? Charge what?” Dayall countered. “You need to stick with the rest of us and stop going off on your own. Understand?”
The ex-commander’s harsh tone had an immediate effect on the young man. Kelen could see Dox mentally and emotionally retreating, and she reached over to drape an arm across the man’s shoulder. She started to reply to Dayall’s comment when Fullgrath cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, sir, but if I recall correctly, you’re no longer in charge of this party.”
Dayall stared at them. Sandow patted the man’s shoulder but was shrugged off.
“Sorry, Hod, but you were dethroned, or don’t you remember?” the physician gently asked.
“No, I don’t,” Dayall spat back, getting to his feet. “This is still a military operation, and that means I’m in charge.” He turned to glare at Kyber and Tojun. “Now, will someone explain to me why we have the enemy in our midst? Fullgrath! Cooter!” Dayall glanced around the dim corridor. “Lieutenant! Sound out! Where are you? Why isn’t he here with the rest of us?”
“Umm, Cooter’s gone AWOL,” Jules murmured.
Dayall whirled on him. Behind her, Kelen could sense Kyber tensing as the man grew more incensed. It was clear to everyone that Dayall was slowly but inevitably becoming unhinged. A few feet away, she saw Fullgrath reach inside his pocket and extract something.
Sandow stood and held up his hands in an attempt to calm the man down. “Listen to me, Hod—”
“Commander, Dr. Sandow! Address me correctly when in front of the crew!”
“I am addressing you correctly,” Sandow informed him in his best physician’s voice. “Listen to me. You’re not yourself. You’re stressed out. And you took a hard blow to the head when we crash landed on this world.”
Dayall looked both ways down the tunnel. “There was no crash landing, doctor. This is a recon party. It’s you who is stressed. Fullgrath! Give me an update on our status!”
The ex-weapons master slowly rose and approached the man. “Currently, we’re about a mile or so beneath this planet’s surface. We’ve been following various tunnels and trails to get this far. The indigenous population ranks at Code Red, and the sentient population appears to have died out some time ago. Thankfully, there’s plenty of water. And, so far, we’ve managed to find some food that our systems can tolerate.”
Dayall pointed at Kyber. “Why are they here?”
Kelen could see Fullgrath’s fingers hovering near his pants pocket. The man was waiting for the right moment, and she was going to give it to him. Jumping up, she shoved Dayall’s arm, forcing the man to face her.
“They’re not our enemy anymore,” she told him. “They went through the same wormhole we did. They crashed on this world, just like us. We need them to survive, and they need us. It’s that simple, sir.”
Dayall’s face flushed. He obviously didn’t appreciate the tone she’d taken with him and made a menacing step toward her, when Fullgrath jumped him, throwing his arms around the man and trapping the ex-commander’s arms by his side. Immediately, Jules joined them, taking the ball of wire from Fullgrath’s pocket. Dayall struggled, cursing them and threatening everyone with charges of mutiny, while Kyber assisted the other men in keeping Dayall steady so that Jules could rewrap the man’s wrists and arms with the wire. When they were certain Dayall couldn’t retaliate, they moved away to give the man some air.
For several seconds, Dayall’s hatred was palpable as he locked eyes on everyone. The last person he turned to was Dox, who hadn’t moved since the man lashed out at him.
“This all started with you, you genetically engineered little freak! You turned them against me!”
Kelen laid a hand on Dox’s back to show a measure of support, but Dox shrugged it off and stepped up to the incensed officer. But instead of replying or commenting, the little man held out a short length of tubing and shoved one end of it into Dayall’s stomach. There was a buzz, a small flash, and the smell of something burning. The man went rigid, his eyes bulged, and he pitched forward, face first, onto the rocky ground without a sound.
Chapter 4
Nonagon
They stared in shock at the motionless man on the ground, and the little man standing over him.
“Dox, what did you do?” Kelen softly asked. He continued to hold the tube thing away from his body, and no one reached out to take it from him.
Dox looked over at her. “He’s not dead. He’s asleep.”
Sandow crouched over the fallen ex-commander and rolled him onto his side. A dark sheen of blood smeared the ground. Dayall’s nose was bloodied, and there was a noticeable scrape across his left cheek and forehead. The doctor placed two fingers over the man’s carotid artery.
“Heartbeat’s steady. No telling how long he’ll be out. Dox, what did you hit him with?”
Dox held up the tube. “It’s a stopper. It stops things.”
Kyber reached out and plucked the weapon from Dox’s grasp. Kelen saw him peer at both ends of the tube.
“And you charged it at the tower?” the Seneecian inquired.
Dox nodded, smiling. He was clearly proud of his new toy. “You threw away your weapons. We needed new ones.”
Fullgrath snorted. “He’s right. Most of us tossed our pistols when those eye worms attacked us in the temple.”
“Or in the garden,” Kelen added.
“That’s because we didn’t think we’d have any way to recharge them,” Fullgrath noted. “Dox, if we’re able to retrieve our guns, could you recharge them?”
Kelen saw the little man’s eyebrows rise as he thought about it. “Maybe,” Dox finally answered. She smiled to herself. In Dox-speak that was a yes, but with a caveat. More than likely that caveat meant he’d probably have to tinker with the weapons’ initial construction. She’d almost guarantee he’d change them to the point where they wouldn’t look anything remotely like they’d been originally. And he’d have a great time doing it. Dox was happiest when he was tinkering. It was more than an obsession with him. More than a job. It was his whole life. Want to give Dox a present? Give him a tool, the more unique and exotic, the better.
Kyber hefted the tube weapon. It looked small in the Seneecian’s big hands. “Dox, how many of these do you have?”
“Four.”
“This looks like a piece of insulation from the ionic filters. How do you fire it?” Fullgrath inquired, taking the tube from Kyber. “Do you have to touch the creature?”
“Shake it and point,” Dox instructed. “Wide dispersal. The closer, the better.”
Giving him a look of disbelief, Fullgrath gave the tube a shake, then aimed one end of it down the corridor. There was a faint keening sound. A second later, part of the wall exploded, sending dust, debris, rock, and dirt billowing through the tunnel. Everyone ducked and covered their faces as they turned away from the blast. Once things began to settle, Jules snorted.
“I bet, given enough time, Dox could get our ship space-worthy again.”
Mellori laughed. “I wouldn’t take that bet!”
“What about Dayall?” Kelen brought their attention back to the unconscious man.
“One thing’s certain. He’ll have to remain tied up and watched,” the physician noted.
Sandow shot the Seneecian a guarded look. “I’ve seen this reaction before with others, usually those in command positions. Dayall’s condition is exacerbated by the concussion he took when we crashed.”
“Is there anything you can give him?” Jules asked. “Something to keep him calm?”
Sandow held out his hands. “We have no meds. My scanners are useless, unless…” He turned to Dox. Reaching into the pouch hanging from his waist, he extracted the palm-sized machine and handed it over to the little man. “Dox, I need you to fix this. Recharge it, recalibrate it, whatever you need to do, do it.”
Dox nodded, taking the scanner and shoving it inside his shirt for safekeeping.
Kyber peered down the corridor. “I’m not familiar with this tunnel. How far are the apartments from this entrance?”
Gaveer answered him. “Less than a majuur’s walk. Not far.”
“Good. Let’s move. We need to dry out as soon as possible, and find food.”
Fullgrath reached down toward Dayall. “Jules, help me carry the commander.”
“No need for that,” Massapa intervened. Stepping forward, he lifted the man and hefted him over one shoulder. Kyber took the lead again, and everyone else fell into step behind him.
They reached a familiar looking door before too long. Kyber signaled for them to keep their distance and approached the portal. Taking another tube weapon from Dox, Fullgrath joined him. With a nod of his head, Kyber palmed the symbol to open the doorway, and they waited. When nothing jumped out at them, Kyber entered first. A moment later, he stuck his head back into the corridor.
“The way is clear.”
The pile of bones lying in the middle of the atrium, the last remnants of the past inhabitants, appeared to be undisturbed following the eye worm attack a few days ago. Everyone filed into the main atrium, giving the remains a wide berth. Remembering Dox’s description, Kelen glanced around and noted there were nine doors. A nonagon, exactly as the little man had mentioned. She frowned. Nine doors, with three additional passageways.