The weight of the pack bit into her shoulders. It would be a long walk back. Holtzclaw’s surviving techies would gush over the new pieces, she felt sure.
If you told them a Trilisk pissed on it, they’d rush to examine it.
Not that she knew if Trilisks urinated or not. But she felt that she would probably never find out, and it was just as well, since the aliens had died out and left the galaxy to the Terrans.
It may have found the best Trilisk stuff for itself. That could explain it, she realized. She hadn’t considered the possibility before. But if anything could explain a single long-lived Konuan that could sneak in and out of their perimeter and hunt down heavily armed men and women, it was Trilisk technology in its possession.
Goddamn thing. I’m gonna blow it to bits.
Her hand found the smooth black grenade dangling around her throat on a tough nylon line.
Or if it gets me first, I’m taking it with me.
Arakaki had rigged the grenade to a pH sensor so it would detonate if covered in a strong acid. She believed the victims were dissolved by acid secreted by the creature, and the strong ammonia smell was due to bases it used to neutralize the acid once the victim was incapacitated. Whether the ammonia neutralized acid in the victim as potential food or simply kept the creature from dissolving itself from the inside out, she did not know, but every dead soldier had been found with his or her head half gone. If the Konuan got past her eternal vigilance and pounced on her head, it was in for a surprise.
Arakaki moved through the now-familiar old buildings of the original sentient inhabitants of Chigran Callnir Four. Though she had found the empty silence of the ruins unsettling at first, she felt at home among them now, even knowing she could be hunted down and killed. She had made friends with the danger. She bit down on the sliver in her mouth. In fact, she was a bit too eager for danger now, since she had lost him. Some days, she wanted it to end so she didn’t have to think about it even one more time.
An hour later it was early afternoon. She had made steady progress through the empty city. Still probably too early for the Konuan to show.
Probably.
She approached the danger zone of the UED perimeter. Arakaki took up a position beside a Konuan building, facing a distant hillside overlooking the ruins. She sent her code from her link to a directional transmitter in her combat suit.
The probe on the distant hillside received her safe entrance request. Somewhere up ahead, a Guardian machine verified her target signature on its no-shoot list.
Arakaki continued. She was still cautious; a clearglider could have wandered into the zone, but more importantly, she wasn’t sure enough of the Konuan’s habits to risk her life by being careless now.
She came across the Guardian less than a kilometer from the outside of the zone. The machine didn’t move. It towered above her on metal spider legs, about twice her height. It had four arms to match its four legs. The arms were weapon mounts. Each arm of number four, or Scorn as the mechanics called it, held a long cannon barrel counterbalanced by an ammunition magazine.
“Welcome back, Captain,” Scorn said.
“Any kills today, Scorn?” Arakaki asked, though she could just as easily have checked its fire record directly with her link.
“No kills today, Captain,” it told her.
“Me neither,” she said, and continued into the camp.
Chapter 5
Magnus awakened to an alert in his PV. At first he thought he had misconfigured his scout leverage analysis to send an important alert when it completed. But it was not related to his project to enable the scouts to pry open the Konuan grilles. It was a warning that one of the machines had been disabled or destroyed.
He opened his eyes. Everything appeared calm within the tent. Their equipment boxes formed parallel walls supporting the tough fabric ceiling. Underneath, a level foam floor protected them from the jagged rocks. Telisa and Cilreth looked asleep, but Telisa sent him a message with her link.
“Something wrong?”
“We’ve lost a scout,” Magnus reported. “It’s not near here. Probably nothing to worry about. The machine may have just fallen into a hole or gotten itself into a dumb spot.”
Telisa opened her eyes and sat up. She dialed up a cold lantern with her link, bathing the space in more light. “Are we in danger?”
“I don’t think so,” Magnus said. “The scout we lost was a kilometer out. We still have several local.”
The group had discussed sleeping back in the Clacker, in the tent amidst their equipment containers, or in the Konuan buildings. Magnus didn’t trust the Konuan buildings. Cilreth feared predators and made the case for a trek back to the Clacker. In the end, no one had strong objections to setting up inside a ring of equipment and cargo cases for some light shelter.
Magnus’s mention of the local scouts was verified by the sounds of tapping coming from the nearest Konuan building. They had left two scouts inside to clear more grilles as they slept. Magnus looked over a few images of the inside.
“Or maybe something nasty got a hold of it,” Cilreth said, joining the conversation late.
“Sorry to wake you. It’s probably nothing.”
“We lost a scout. I’m on a strange alien planet sleeping in a flimsy tent about a kilometer from something nasty. It’s not nothing.”
Magnus shrugged. “We’ll have to investigate at first light. Why don’t you stay here and expand our camp? Deploy the rest of our equipment.”
Cilreth gave him an inscrutable look. “Okay,” she said.
It will be good for her to get used to working out here alone, Telisa said to Magnus over a private channel.
Alone? he replied. I thought you would stay with her.
No way.
The three played with sleep for another hour and a half, but everyone simply tossed and turned, waiting for daybreak. At the first sign of the Chigran Callnir star above the horizon, Magnus and Telisa eagerly threw together some equipment. Magnus told the tent walls to retract with his link. The morning air was cool but not cold in his Veer skinsuit.
“We’ll be back. You’ve got half a dozen scouts are in this area; call on them if you encounter any more of those transparent snakes, or anything else.”
“Got it,” Cilreth said. “You guys be careful. If something can kill one of those robots…”
Then it can kill us.
Magnus pulled his rifle off his back and checked it manually and electronically. He loved the old weapon and considered it rock solid. He understood it well enough to obtain more parts and ammunition back at the base through supplication to the Trilisk AI.
Telisa locked on to the destroyed scout herself. She led the way. Magnus followed along while asking two more scouts to converge with them at the site of the attack.
She’s eager. Still very cautious, though. A woman after my own heart.
“When are you going to give up that old relic and go for some advanced Vovokan technology?” Telisa asked him over her link.
“I already have. The attendant spheres.”
One of his two spheres orbited by on cue.
“Kind of. I meant more in the way of an offensive weapon like your rifle.”
“I can work in that direction. I’d prefer to understand it fully. We don’t want to be any more dependent on Shiny than we already are.” He glanced at the alien weapon on her back, then added, “And we want to be able to use our weapons safely.”
“Is that a stab at my chain lightning gun?”
“Well, honestly, we don’t know enough about it. Like, how does it target things? You can’t safely shoot it in the direction of any friendlies because you don’t know how to select your target signature, if the thing even has that functionality.”
“Yeah. The gun is a bit crude. But effective.”
“Anyway, what I was originally saying is, I can make parts myself without Shiny having to do the prayers for me.”
“You can ‘make parts yourself’ by prayi
ng to an alien god machine? Ha. Priceless. If Shiny takes off now, can we even get off the planet?”
“Depends on whether or not he takes the Clacker with him.”
“We need another team member so we can split up and still operate in pairs,” Telisa said, changing the subject.
“Agreed. I’m working on it.”
“I want in. We can’t have you simply hiring a bunch of beautiful young women!” she joked.
“Can I have at least one more?”
Telisa snorted. Magnus smiled.
They came to the end of an open area of rough rock. Straight ahead, a thick stand of native plants rose from fractures in the ground. Magnus looked for other living things but didn’t spot any dangers.
Telisa slowed. She obviously didn’t like the idea of reducing their line of sight any more than he did. He remembered the clear snake creature and how hard it had been to spot.
Magnus interfaced with a guardian sphere and sent it ahead into the stand of plants. Telisa noticed it fly by, then did the same with one of her spheres.
“It looks like bamboo as it comes up from the breaches in the rocks, but those ridiculous…pom-poms of green stuff are almost comical,” Telisa said.
“Yes, but I’m getting used to it slowly. And it’s less comical now that I’ve seen the green worms they’re made of.”
The guardian spheres reached the robot remains ahead without incident. Telisa and Magnus recalled the spheres and waded into the stalks. They advanced another twenty meters.
“We’re here,” she said, looking every which way. “Ah, there it is.”
The machine had been smashed. Its legs were splayed at an angle resembling a spider crushed under a boot. The red rock had been singed black in a couple of spots.
“Looks like it burned out after taking a big hit,” Telisa said.
“This took a considerable amount of force. The scouts are made of durable stuff.”
“Something added a bit of wear and tear,” Telisa said. She looked around nervously. “What’s that smell?”
Magnus knelt before the remains of the scout. The smell was strong. “It’s the scout. Maybe that’s some chemical from the Gorgalan parts.” He retreated. “It could be toxic.”
“It could be the smell of whatever killed it,” Telisa pointed out.
“Possible. None of the other scouts saw anything unusual.”
“Bad luck.”
“I’m not so sure. A predator would have had to be very elusive to do this without being seen by any of the other scouts.”
“Hah, well think about it. Stealthy predators get more food than clumsy loud ones.”
“True enough,” Magnus conceded, holding his weapon at the ready.
“Maybe it was partially transparent, like the red snake thing,” Telisa said. “I think I’ll call it a ribbon snake. That red part inside reminded me of a long red ribbon.”
They walked out of the concealing stalks to a relatively open spot. Magnus sent her a search spiral.
“Let’s do a quick patrol and see what we can see. I’d like to get a feel for the central ruins, anyway.”
They set off, weapons at the ready. Telisa walked in parallel with Magnus about three meters to Telisa’s left. A large structure became visible above the nearby stalks.
“So much for our spiral. The buildings are in the way,” Telisa observed.
“Shiny, do you know of anything large enough to kill off one of our scouts?” Magnus transmitted, including Telisa in the channel.
The alien responded almost immediately. “Several possibilities. Large predators do exist on the surface.”
“That might explain the grilles,” Telisa said. “The natives had to move freely through their city without being in danger from predators.”
“You call this moving freely?” Magnus said. “These things are practically part of the wall.”
“Yes. I think I understand that now, though. It isn’t freely movable for us. We must be more like their predators. These creatures most likely moved through the grilles without opening them. Think about the shape required—wide and flat—they were pancake-flat creatures and they probably slid through these openings and moved over the walls and ceiling. Like flat caterpillars.”
“Or blobs of formless flesh,” Magnus said.
“Oh, now we’re talking real horror VR material.”
“Other high probability causes, culprits, explanations,” added Shiny. “More Terrans detected, noted, found within ten kilometers your location.”
“There are other people around here?” Telisa blurted.
“If you’re trying to give us the best chance of success, you need to brief us more completely,” Magnus growled.
“Yes. You could have mentioned that earlier, you know!” Telisa said with anger growing in her voice.
“Previously not detected, noted, found. Currently not detected, noted, found.”
“Uhm. I think that means you detected some Terrans briefly? Now they’re below your radar, so to speak. To figuratively speak,” Telisa said.
“Recent knowledge, development, discovery. Unable to warn, tell, divulge at younger temporal stage.”
“Now that was just obtuse. We like to say that as ‘I just found out about it myself,’” Telisa said.
“I just found out about it myself,” Shiny repeated in his buzzy voice. He mimicked her defensive tone. Telisa couldn’t help but laugh. Even Magnus found his annoyance evaporating as Shiny copied Telisa’s statement.
“How many of them? Where?” Magnus asked.
Shiny offered them a map feed. Magnus saw a map of the ancient Konuan city. He saw the locations of dozens of Terrans almost directly across the bulk of the city from his current position.
“That’s a big expedition or a tiny colony,” Magnus said.
“Uh oh. If it’s a colony, maybe most of them died off,” Cilreth said.
“What else can you tell us about them, Shiny?” asked Telisa.
“Armed. In hiding. Associated by hierarchy of command. Rarely pairing off to mate, suggesting sexually homogeneous group.”
“You have a way with words, Shiny,” Telisa said.
“Appreciated, agreed, accepted.”
Telisa turned to Magnus and spoke quietly. “Why are there other people here? Could they be smugglers? UNSF?”
“Could be. Settlers might be the best guess. It’s an open world. But a hierarchy does imply a military presence. Yet they haven’t appeared to arrest or kill us.”
“They may not have seen us yet. Maybe we should run.”
“They couldn’t have missed the Clacker. It’s huge. Cilreth didn’t mention any Vovokan cloaking.”
“We didn’t see any cities from orbit. Must only be a few of them, right?”
“I think so. We could send out a couple of scouts and see what we can see. I’d rather avoid them and continue our work on this side of the ruins. They may not be wanting any visitors.”
Chapter 6
Holtzclaw forced himself to look over the body of one of his soldiers. It lay broken across the red rocks at his feet. It was the same as always. Most of the flesh had been gouged or dissolved away from the shoulder blades upward. Only parts of the brain remained within the skull. The stench of ammonia lingered over the corpse. Holtzclaw did a mental accounting.
The forty-fourth victim of the monster. Assuming there really is only one.
Captain Arakaki believed strongly it was the work of only one Konuan. She had a lot of data to back the idea up. The pattern of kills, their distance apart, and the frequency of attacks all supported the idea that only one creature was out there killing them.
Or at least only one creature at a time. Maybe they take turns like some kind of hunting club.
Holtzclaw had Arakaki on the Konuan almost full time. She had the authority to pull a kill team whenever she chose. She had yet to do so, and Holtzclaw knew it was because she was a perfectionist. She wouldn’t scramble the team until she knew they had a very
real shot at slaying the creature.
Until then, it had the initiative. Their sensors weren’t tracking it for the most part, though there were tantalizing clues, ghosts really, and half the time even those proved to be deceptions. Holtzclaw had no doubt about one thing: that creature was smart, smart on the level of full sentience. Maybe smarter than the Terrans.
A couple of soldiers wrapped the man up in blackvines. The dead had two destinations here: cremation or burial in one of the plant fissures. Most of the men chose cremation, but this man, Hummel, had been something of a nature lover and had chosen to be put into a fissure to become plant food. The soldiers carried him away.
Holtzclaw looked after the receding corpse and felt his morale slip one iota further into the void.
We’re slowly dying here. Not just from the Konuan, but from everything. There can’t really be any point in resisting the UNSF any longer, can there?
Sometimes Holtzclaw would discuss it with his officers. The new frontier was a big place. They wouldn’t necessarily have to surrender. They could go out and join some of the outfits coming together far from Earth, and no one would come looking for them for a long time, if ever. Yet the dream of humanity freed from the old government of the core worlds was something they all believed in so strongly, they hadn’t given up.
Holtzclaw thought about the recent landing again. Whoever it was, they had come in a big ship. They had to have a lot of supplies. Maybe even mobile factories that could produce new hardware with the right specs to feed into them. He had a feeling they had to turn this to their advantage or it might be over. They had to risk action now.
He used his link to call his officers in for a FTF. He told them to show up at the surveillance tent. It was close to Holtzclaw, in his sight at the moment. He headed for it at a slow walk, knowing the others would take longer to arrive. They had built their above-surface camp carefully, molding it to the terrain and the alien plant stalks to achieve concealment. They only needed access to one of the Trilisk tunnels, because the entire system was interconnected beneath the ruins. A system of active camouflage nets covered the entire camp, open space and all, so that men could walk between the tents and the underground entrance without notice from above.
The Trilisk Supersedure (Parker Interstellar Travels #3) Page 5